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THROUGH A DARTMOOR 
WINDOW 

By BEATRICE CHASE 

" A beautiful and human book.” — The Wheatsheaf. 

” The poetry of the great moor is steeped into her soul.” — Christian World. 

” The volume breathes of the moor and one can almost feel the cool wind as 
one reads it.” — Daily Graphic. 

“ An artistic triumph. . . . From page to page the book breathes the air 
of the uplands.” — Irish Independent. 

“ How real they all are ! How absolutely different from the papier m§ch6 
peasantry of the town-dwelling novelist.” — Western Daily Mercury. 

“ She has caught admirably well the romantic aspects of the scenery and 
associations of that wild strip of country in Devon.” — The Standard. 

" Reading it over tea, I wondered discontentedly at the absence of Devon- 
shire cream. This will show you what atmosphere can do.” — Punch. 

” The lure of the moor, the cry of the Dart, the great virgin stretches of land 
with their scent of furze and bracken get into one’s very blood.” 

Pall Mall Gazette. 

" This is a singularly charming book. ... It tells of the simplest persons 
and things. . . . But the seer of them is a gentlewoman of exquisite sensibility 
and gentleness, and her vision certainly has a rare translucency and radiance.” 

The Queen. 

“ It is thoroughly characteristic of this humane, tender, and wide-winged 
outlook from a Dartmoor window that Love, human, natural and divine, should 
be its presiding genius, carrying its final message to every strange adventurer 
among the tors.” — Daily Telegraph. 

" She acts as a wholesome corrective to the works of a certain novelist who 
leaves on us the impression that most of the moor folk are vicious or rascally. 
Living in their midst instead of at a seaside town, she possibly knows them 
almost as well as he does, and her evidence is that they are just as fine, honest 
people as in the Delectable Duchy next door.” — Evening Standard. 

" Hitherto one had somehow felt that to Richard Blackmore, above all 
others, belonged the supreme power of casting the moorland spell over his 
readers. But he depicted the romance of the earth life alone. , . . Beatrice 
Chase surrounds her pictures with the amethystine aura of the deepest mysteries 
of life and love, in their eternal kinship with a spiritual life whose beauty no 
pen can describe. In painting earth for us, she paints heaven.” — Occult Review. 

" There are few books since ‘ Lorna Doone ’ that convey so faithfully the air 
of the great stillness. ... It places Miss Chase pre-eminently at the head of 
the moor writers.” — Baltimore Catholic Review. 

” In these days of battle, murder and sudden death, it is a privilege to wander 
with Miss Chase over the eternal peaceful moor or gaze with her out of the 
window that overlooks the high road to ‘ most anywhere,’ ... to sense life at 
its simplest and best and truest, and for a space to be at rest in a world torn, 
bleeding ^and appalled.” — Transcript, Boston. 


THE HEART OF THE MOOR 

By BEATRICE CHASE 


“ No one who knows the Moor well from Ashburton to Believer and from 
Believer to Cranmere Pool can afford to leave these pages unread. . . . Miss 
Chase has stood on Dream Tor and looked into the very heart of the Moor, and 
something of the mystic joy of that vision has left an almost magical impression, 
rare and subtle, upon her work. . . . She has written a book as sweet and haunt- 
ing as ‘ A Bachelor in Arcady.’ ” — The Academy. 

“ Miss Chase is moor mad. She loves the moor with a pantheistic ferocity. 
. . . She loves her Dartmoor folk too as she loves every moorland thing ; she 
writes of them lovingly as a mother might record the doings of her children. 
. . . It is a book with something to interest you or amuse you or set you wonder- 
ing on every page.” — Birmingham Daily Gazette. 

“ With a heart full of love for their seeming oddities, she has written of their 
joys and griefs, their longings and disappointments, their little twisted comedies 
and the brooding shadows which hang over the wild wind-swept spaces. . . . 
It is an unusual story, nor undeserving of mention in the same breath as ‘ Lorna 
Doone.’ ” — Manchester Courier. 

“ No one who has read in these pages of * The man with the iron mask ’ will 
ever forget either the author or the book. Miss Chase may be moor mad, genius 
may be akin to madness. There is, however, rare and high art in her insanity.” 

Dublin Daily Express. 

” She is ‘ moor mad,’ a nature lover to her finger-tips, and is able to overcome 
the constitutional shyness of the Dartmoor folk so that they regard her as one 
of themselves. Her book contains some of the most s)Tnpathetic descriptions of 
this west country beauty spot that we remember to have come across. These 
people, their stories and humours, their dogs and their babies, the work of the 
land and the writer’s love for her home and its setting, form a book of singular 
power.” — The Clarion. 

“ One of the best books dealing with the uplands of Devon that it has been 
our lot to read. From start to finish the volume breathes the air of Dartmoor, 
and on every page the reader comes across one or other of those folk so well 
known to frequenters of the moor. When the authoress breaks into dialect 
there is no doubt about its being the real thing. . . . It is a book of Dartmoor 
in every sense of the word.” — Devon and Exeter Gazette. 

” The book is a notable contribution to the literature of Dartmoor — con- 
vincing, vivid, and lovable. . . . Wind, sun, storm and shadow play on the 
moor in these delightful pages. . . . Light touches everywhere prove how deep 
and accurate is the author’s knowledge.” — Pall Mall Gazette. 

” Verily she gets the very soul and inspiration of the whole moorland into 
her pages. . . . Other writers have given it merely as background to their 
human stories . . . but here Dartmoor itself is the centre of interest that makes 
the moor a haunting reality to the reader of this distinctive book.” 

Cork Constitution. 

” Miss Chase has proved her temerity to be justifiable. She shows us Dart- 
moor from a new standpoint. . . . She makes her reader not only understand 
but share her love for the moor, and understand too why the inhabitants of tiny 
Graystone were all so fond of her.” — New York Times. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR 


god’s prisoner 

RISING FORTUNES 

OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE 

A PRINCESS OF VASCOVY 

JOHN OF GERISAU 

UNDER THE IRON FLAIL 

BONDMAN FREE 

MR. JOSEPH SCORER 

BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU 

A WEAVER OF WEBS 

HEARTS IN EXILE 

THE GATE OF THE DESERT 

WHITE FIRE 

GIANT CIRCUMSTANCE 

PROFIT AND LOSS 

THE LONG ROAD 

CARETTE OF SARK 

PEARL OF PEARL ISLAND 

THE SONG OF HYACINTH 

MY LADY OF SHADOWS 

GREAT-HEART GILLIAN 

A MAID OF THE SILVER SEA 

LAURISTONS 

THE COIL OF CARNE 

THEIR HIGH ADVENTURE 

QUEEN OF THE GUARDED MOUNTS 

MR. CHERRY 

THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN ROSE 
MARY ALL-ALONE 
RED WRATH 

BEES IN AMBER (VERSE) 

MAID OF THE MIST 
BROKEN SHACKLES 

“ all's well ! ” (verse) 

FLOWER OF THE DUST 


1 








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MY LADY 
OF THE MOOR 


BY 

JOHN OXENHAM 


WITH FRONTISPIECE 



LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 

FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK 
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 
1916 








% 






«« 















TO 

BEATRICE 

MY LADY OF THE MOOR 
WHO 

BY HER NOBLE FAITH AND MANY PRAYERS 
SAVED ALIVE 

THE SOUL OF ONE SINFUL MAN 
AND 

IF IT PLEASE GOD 


OF TWO 


NOTE 


/n these days it is advisable to defend oneself hefoi'eTiand 
against possible actions at law for the unintentional use 
of the names of persons of whom one has never heard. 
The only “ adopted ” names in this booh are those 
of Noel Daunt and his pseudonym Ian Carril.^^ 
His own names could obviously not be given. In making 
use of these others I wish to state as plainly as print 
can put it^ that, so far as I know, they belong to no one 
in actual life. If they do, it is pure coincidence and 
quite unintentional. As far as I am conceimed, they 
are simply fanciful names. I know of no one bearing 
the same^ 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


PROLOGUE 

I. 

XUST a year ago from this day I was savouring 
^ Dartmoor for the first time. And that is a 
great and boundless joy, and a white-stone time 
for any man. To me it was to prove even more 
than that, for it brought me a unique experience 
and a great white friendship. 

I had made my headquarters at the little inn at 
Postbridge, the half-way house on the great up- 
along, down-alongj high road between Moreton 
Hampstead and Princetown, and so in the very 
heart of things, and nearer than I knew to the very 
Heart of the Moor itself. 

Prom there I rambled day after day, wide and 
free, over the mighty sweeps of rolling moorlands, 
knee-deep now in heather already swinging purple 
bells in places ; and again, ploughing dubious 
courses through vast stretches of breast-high 
billowing bracken, and stumbling every once in a 
while on unexpected kistvaens, and miniature 

B 


2 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


Stonehenges, and pre-historic hut-circles. But 
always in the end I managed to win through to 
some bold Tor, soft-carpeted below with short 
green turf, and up aloft all a-bristle with the wild 
fantasies of rock flung up in the beginning of things 
by the vast internal fires, and scored and wrought 
and pitted — and soothed and salved as well with 
moss and lichen — ^through all the ages since by the 
gentle, ruthless Angers of Time. 

And there I would lie for hours, nibbling the 
inn’s forethoughtfully-provided lunches, smoking at 
intervals, watching the wonderful play of cloud and 
sun over the wide unsullied world below, and the 
doings of the only living things in sight — ^the cows, 
and sheep, and quaint little moor-ponies and their 
still quainter kittenish foals ; and thinking the 
deep, deep thoughts that well up out of the void 
to fill the gracious spaces of life. 

It was a rarely uplifting time, and I came to 
on terms of delightful intimacy with all the heights 
within easy reach ; — ^with Sittaford Tor and its 
stark Grey Wethers, with Stannon and Rough Tors, 
with Longaford and the twisted dwarfs of Wistman’s 
Wood, with Laughter Tor and Huccaby, with 
Riddon Ridge and Blackaton and Hamildown. 

But, chiefest and best, with Believer. For 
Believer is very close to the heart of things, and 
from it — no, from him, for the Tors, and Believer 
supremely so, have an individuality of their^own 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


3 


which, to all who love them, entirely precludes all 
thought of the impersonal — . . . 

Indeed, to Believer I am inclined to go a step 
higher still and accord her queenship and call her 
‘ her.’ For Believer, though not by any means the 
highest or boldest of the Tors, still rises like a queen 
among them all, and from her throne of mighty 
rough-piled granite shelves you see all the rest and 
very much more besides. 

I wandered east-by-north to Grimspound and 
Shapley and King Tor, and east-by-south to Yar 
Tor and Dartmeet. Then, one noble day of shine 
and shade, with occasional sweeps of rain which 
quickened into new and vivid beauty the olives and 
emeralds and purples of the Moor, sprinkling all 
the face of it with shimmer of living diamonds, over- 
laying even the gray old stones with gleaming cloth 
of gold when the sun shone out again, and filling the 
fhrther distances with tones of tender amethyst and 
opal which ministered to one’s soul like the silent 
sympathy of friends in time of trouble, I came upon 
Gray stone. ^ 

I had come wandering over the great green 
shoulder of Hamildown when, away below in front, 
I saw the tall gray church spire soaring, shapely and 
beautiful, above the cushiony green foliage and 
clustering roofs of the village. And I sat down on 
the nearest half-drie^ rock and gazed at it all with 
mightiest enjoyment. 


4 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


For never is oasis so welcome as after long 
journeying through desert sand ; and never is the 
sight of tillage and boscage, and the curling blue 
smoke of homely chimneys, so sweet as when one 
comes upon them unexpectedly amid the great 
rolling shoulders and rounded breasts and hollows 
of the Moor. 

I sat so long in the joy of that first sight of Gray- 
stone that my shadow was long in front of me when 
8 1 last I rose to go. I had wandered wide that day. 
It would be a long and tiring walk back to Post- 
bridge, and, to one still new to the Moor, none too 
attractive in the coming darkness. 

I halted for a second between the alternatives — 
on to the allure of the village ? — or try back ? 

And then, to my vast enrichment and perpetual 
joy, though at the time I did not know it, my good 
angel surely whispered “ On ! — on ! — on ! ” and I 
strode down the hill, so unaware of what awaited 
me down there that my only thought was as to how 
to prevent my good hosts at Postbridge sending out 
search-parties for the recovery of the wanderer. 

The no less kindly folk of the little inn soon set 
my mind at rest. I could send a telegram from the 
post-office round the corner. They could provide 
me with a room and all necessaries for the night. 
Tea could be ready in five minutes, and dinner at 
any hour I chose to name. 

As it was late for tea and early enough for dinner 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


5 


after only a stroller’s lunch, I decided on a tea- 
dinner in half an hour. And when I had dispatched 
it I strolled out into the gloaming to savour Gray- 
stone and its surroundings ; and all unconsciously, 
and thereby all the more enjoyably, wandered 
straight into the outer fringe of this story. 

For had my good angel faltered or for once made 
a mistake, — which good angels I suppose cannot do, 
— I should have had nothing whatever to do with 
this matter save as an outsider, and thereby would 
have missed much — more perhaps than I yet fully 
realise. 

That busy good angel of mine was hard at work 
again. I wandered down-hill past the old gray 
church, along a t3rpical Devonshire lane banked 
high with flowers and ferns and hazel bushes, and 
across a small stone bridge below which flowed a 
swift moorland stream with long green streamers 
underneath its glimmering brown face. On past 
another little inn, and presently I came upon a cluster 
of buildings which gleamed white in the lingering 
afterglow of the long-set sun. 

I stood looking at the deliciously artistic waves 
of thick gray-brown thatch above the windows, and, 
with no further intention than a closer view of the 
tempting picture, moved unconsciously towards the 
little wicket-gate which led to the porch. 

Inside the garden wall, on my right as I drew to 
the gate, stood another little white, thatched 


6 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


building almost smothered in red climbing roses. 
Its door stood invitingly open as though welcoming 
entrance, and in the soft sweet crepuscule within 
I caught the ruby glow of a tiny swinging lamp. 
And as I stood puzzling as to what this might be, 
and searching for an explanation, my eye lighted 
on a sturdy little granite cross rising out of the rich 
red rose-clusters above the doorway. 

A chapel then ! — a little holy place, nestling like 
a veritable angels’ nest among the hills in this quiet 
corner of the Moor. 

I doffed my hat, unlatched the wicket, which 
gave a subdued click in spite of all my care, and, 
stepping softly, entered. 

And found I was not alone ; — humanly, I mean. 
For none, I think, could enter that little sanctuary 
and doubt that here was indeed an abode of peace, 
a veritable House of God. 

It was all pure white save the altar’s simple panel- 
headings of gold, and the altar-curtains embroidered 
with golden olive leaves, and the candlesticks, and 
the vases filled with golden broom, and the crucified 
Christ over the altar, with figures of saints on out- 
jutting granite pedestals on either side up above. 
The seats were of dark red wood and the rafters of 
the roof were black. Everything else — save the 
tiny red lamp, a large missal, a prayer book or two, 
and a rosary of ruby beads hanging over the front 
seat — was purest white, and a sense of soothing and 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


7 


perfect peace enveloped me as I tiptoed in and sank 
into the furthest corner of the back seat. 

Whether I was intruding or not I did not know. 
Still, I had found the door open to its widest, and it 
is never an intrusion to enter the House of God. 

I judged it to be a House of Prayer consecrated 
to the worship of the Roman faith, though indeed at 
times it is not easy nowadays to distinguish between 
the houses of the older faith and those of the more 
advanced forms of the newer. 

But that did not trouble me. I can kneel and 
worship in Notre-Dame or St. Peter’s as helpfully 
as in a Primitive Methodist chapel, — and more so 
at times. 

The other worshipper, kneeling in the front seat 
absorbed in her devotions, had given no slightest 
sign of recognition of my presence. All I could see 
in the dim light was that she was slender and grace- 
ful, and wore her hair in heavy coils which gleamed 
like ripening corn even in the faint light of the 
swinging ruby lamp. 

Her head was bowed in deepest devotion when 
I entered, and she so remained, obviously absorbed 
in her prayers, for so long that I half wondered if she 
might not indeed be but one more beautiful adorn- 
ment of the little shrine. I watched her hypnotically, 
— no merely human man could have done otherwise, 
— and condoned my rudeness with the comfortable 
knowledge that she could not possibly be aware of it. 


8 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


My own prayers ? They were said even as I 
watched. There was a strange, deep, comforting, 
and all-pervasive sense of prayer all about me as I 
knelt, as though that little holy place were indeed 
so habituated to unusual fervency of petition, and 
to closest intimacy with heavenly things, that its 
very atmosphere was charged therewith. 

Presently, to the vast relief of my somewhat 
quickened feelings, my fellow-worshipper rose 
silently from her knees and sank into her seat. 
She took up a book from a pile at her side? with a 
subtle grace in the simple action which I felt but 
could not explain, and leaned restfully back as 
though reading in it, — at peace with herself, and 
life, and all the world. The ruby lamp above her 
head, however, gave so dim a light that I imagined 
she held the book more from habit than of necessity, 
and that its contents were probably very familiar 
to her. 

So we sat for a space, in a stillness so perfect that 
in it alone there was again a most uplifting sense of 
worship. And then, with no more than a rustle, 
she was gone, and the little white place felt suddenly 
empty and bereft. 

Outside, far away on the edge of the Moor, a lamb 
woke up and bleated anxiously to its mother. It 
seemed but to accentuate the perfect silence which 
enveloped me. 

The dim red light shone faintly on a figure of the 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


9 


Good Shepherd above the crucified Christ. In His 
arms was a lamb — a white one, and at His feet, 
controlled thereto by the butt of His crook, was 
another of darker hue and evidently of less amenable 
disposition. Still they were both there ; and, 
incongruously, I wondered if the artist had mean^ 
to typify in them woman’s attitude towards religion 
and man’s. 

For simple decency’s sake I sat on for a minute 
or two, gazing at the Shepherd and the sheep, and 
then I ftlso went out into the night which seemed 
full of the fragrance of happy growing things ; and 
I came out into a shaft of mellow light which 
streamed out of the door of the house but a few 
feet away. And, full in the stream of it, stood the 
lady of the chapel. 

She was standmg with her back to the light, so 
that I could not distinguish her face very well. 
She gave me, however, an exquisite impression of 
grace and something more — some indefinable and 
uplifting charm as though here was something 
unusually sweet and pm^e and altogether good and 
lovely. 

I could not pass without speaking, so I fell back 
on obviously unnecessary apology. 

“ I hope I did not intrude, in entering your little 
Holy of Holies,” I ventured. 

“ Indeed, no ! No one intrudes in entering God’s 
House,” — and the rounded tones fulfilled aU my 


10 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


thought of her, even as her words confirmed my 
own view of the matter. 

“It is an exquisite little place. . . . One comes 
on it like a jewel in the midst of your wild 
moors.” 

“ Yes,” she nodded. . . . “ Are you by chance 
of our faith ? ” 

“No. I belong to one of the newer branches of 
the later church.” 

“ Yet you knelt in there,” she said quickly. 
“ — And prayed ? ” and I felt the compelling power 
of her gaze, though I could not in the dusk see her 
eyes very clearly. 

“ Both knelt and prayed. Why not ? Did you 
put up a prayer for me along with your own ? ” 

“ Why do you ask that ? ” — again in quick 
imperious fashion. 

“ I don’t know. ... I thought it not impossible. 
... I think it was your fervency.” 

“ Well — I did. I make it a practice to pray for 
everyone who comes in, whether I know them or 
not.” 

“ I thank you. It is the same God we worship, 
however much our methods of approach may 
vary.” 

“ Many feel that who go into my little chapel. 

. . . You are staying in Graystone ? ” 

“ I am stopping at Postbridge, but I wandered all 
day on the Moors and only lighted on Graystone as 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


11 


I came over Hamildown, and as it was late, and I 
am not a Moorman, I thought it best to stop over- 
night. I am very glad I did, — or I might have missed 
the sight of your little House of Prayer. Do you 
celebrate Mass here ? ” 

“ On occasion. We cannot support a regular 
priest or chaplain, so the celebration is only at the 
intervals demanded by the rubrics.” 

‘‘ I would like to come again before I leave — if I 
may without intruding.” 

‘‘ I have told you — there can be no intrusion,” — 
and she moved towards the chapel door, to close it 
for the night, I presumed. 

‘‘ I thank you. Then I shall come once more,” 
and as I lifted my hat and turned to go she passed 
into the little chapel, and I saw her casting a last 
loving look all round as though loth to leave it even 
now. 

I was outside the gate when I heard her call to 
me. 

“ Sir ! — Your parcel ! ” and she came out carrying 
in her hand a flat square paper parcel. 

I stood and looked at her and it. 

You left it in the corner of the seat where you 
were sitting,” and she held it out to me. 

“ But it is not mine. I brought nothing with me.” 

“ Not ? Then whose, I wonder ? And what can 
it be ? ” 

She had come to the other side of the wicket-gate. 


12 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


still holding out the parcel as though desirous of 
getting rid of it — and possibly of me. 

I took it out of her hand to examine it. 

‘‘ It feels to me uncommonly like manuscript/’ 
I said, as I handled it tentatively. 

“ Ah ? — you know the feel of manuscript ? ” she 
asked, with quick interest. 

‘‘ Well, I should do, seeing that my life is spent 
in spoiling paper — or otherwise,” I laughed. 

“ Otherwise, I hope. What is your name, sir ? ” 
— and the crisp ‘ si^’ which she occasionally inter- 
polated in her talk had already won my great 
enjoyment. 

I told her, and she reached out a cordial hand. 

“ I am so glad,” she said simply, but with de- 
lightful heartiness. I have read many of your 
books and enjoyed most of them.” 

“ That is good to hear. But I wish you had 
enjoyed them all.” 

‘'It is natural to have one’s preferences. I have 
even among my own books.” 

“You write too ? Oh, this is good ! ” 

“ I will close my chapel and then you will perhaps 
come in for a few minutes. It is always delightful 
to have a word with the outer world ” 

“ Oh, don’t call me that, I beg of you,” I laughed. 

“ — Even though you thank God every day that 
you don’t belong to it,” she ended her sentence ; 
and in answer to mine, — “ You represent it for the 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


13 


moment, anyway. Excuse me, one moment. I 
must light my lamp,” and she disappeared into 
the house, and returned instantly with another 
tiny ruby lamp in which floated a fresh unlighted 
wick. 

She passed into the chapel and I watched with 
interest from the door, while, with a match lighted 
at the suspended lamp, she lit the new lamp she 
carried and substituted it for the one whose service 
was expiring. 

She did it all with a deft grace infused with most 
obvious lovingkindliness for the proceeding, and 
as she came out carrying the flickering lamp I 
asked : 

‘‘Is it essential to light the new lamp from the 
old one ? ” 

“ Why, of course. In that way, you see, the light 
is never extinguished. It typifles the love of God 
which never dies.” 

“ That is rather a fine idea.” 

“ No rather about it. It is the idea, — the only 
possible idea. I am the Lady of the Lamp here. 
The light is in my charge as it was in that of the 
Vestals of old.” 

She locked the door of the little white chapel, and 
with a quietly imperative “ Please come in ! ” led 
the way into the house, — through a long passage 
lined with paintings in water-colour, and glass- 
fronted cabinets filled with china and curios, to a 


14 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


room at the back, though I discovered later that it 
was really the front of the house. 

A charming room, — with a huge wavering oak 
beam lengthwise in the ceiling, and a fire-place that 
occupied almost half the side-wall, — a real Dart- 
moor fire-place, with an immense low iron cobbett 
inside, on which were smouldering peats that filled 
the air with delicate pungent fragrance. 

The smell of burning peat always has an immense 
appeal for me. It is the homeliest and homeiest of 
things that burn. It always conjures up for me 
visions of warm farm -kitchens, and joyous simple 
faring, and tired sheep-dogs spelled out on the floor, 
and pensive cats performing their toilets before 
retiring — or otherwise — for the night. 

And here sure enough was the sheep-dog basking 
in the gentle heat, but she got up at once and came 
along to investigate me, and to make quite sure 
that all was right and this intrusion into the home- 
sanctuary permissible. I gave her a hand to sniff, 
while the lady of the chapel watched interestedly. 
The dog smelt searchingly and her white-tipped tail 
began to testify acceptance of the proffered friendship. 

That’s all right. You are a friend. She never 
makes a mistake. I am glad,” — and she picked 
up a small striped cat, properly busy at his toilet, 
and sank into a chair with him in her lap, where 
he continued his operations unabashed and as if 
nothing had happened and time was short. 


MY LADY OP THE MOOR 


15 


“ Please smoke, if you wish,’’ was my lady’s next 
command. 

“ You are sure it will not be offensive ? ” 

“ I like the smell. Now tell me all about yourself. 
Why did you come to Dartmoor, and what have you 
been doing ? ” — and we sat long and talked. 

It was only when I rose at last, and regretfully, 
to go that we bethought us of the parcel, which she 
had laid on the far end of the table when we came in. 

“ And this ? ” I said, picking it up again. 

And then my eye caught a superscription on it, 
and holding it to the light I read, “ To My Lady 
OF THE Moor.” 

She started and held out a quick hand for it. 

“ Ah ! — then ! — yes, perhaps I know what it may 
be,” she said, and took it out of my hand, and holding 
it in hers looked down at it with a strange perplexity 
in her face. 

It was a fine high face, naturally reposeful, but 
given to quick and vivid expression of her words and 
thoughts. And there was more in it than one can 
well put into words ; — a sense of elation and eleva- 
tion above the superficialities of life, — and of high 
control, as though she had known sorrows more than 
most, but had learned to build of them golden steps 
to higher things. And, withal, there was, behind 
and below all else, a look of deep quiet joyousness 
and high content with what she had arrived at, 
which was good and uplifting to contemplate in her. 


16 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


^If at one time sorrow had swept her with its 
cleansing fires it had left nothing but pure gold 
behind it. The final delicate touches to a beautiful 
face are wrought with the Master-Sculptor’s finest, 
sharpest tools. And here, unless my sense misled 
me, was an underlook of peace after storm, — of that 
steadfast peace, rooted and stablished in the Higher 
Things, which nothing now could destroy, nor even 
greatly disturb. 

Somewhat disturbed it was, however, as she stood 
holding the parcel and looking down at it. 

“ Did you see anything of a man who was at 
Postbridge yesterday — at your inn probably — a lean, 
dark, sombre, rather sad-faced man ? ” she asked 
quietly, and looked right through me with a pair of 
most compelling blue-gray eyes. 

“ There was such a man as you describe. He had 
stopped there once before, I believe, in the rooms 
I’m occupying. They told me he was a writer also. 
Is this his ? ” 

“ I think so. I shall know when . . .” and she 
looked meaningly down at the parcel. 

‘‘ I think I caught a glimpse of him this morning 
also, just as I was starting out.” 

“ Quite likely. He must have walked over and 
left this while I was out, where he knew I could not 
fail to find it.” 

“ And he did not see you, nor you him ? ” 

“ No. I have been out all day — up on the 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


17 


heights/’ she said, with a rarely sweet smile, evoked 
evidently by some inner enjoyment of her own. 
“ How long did you think of stopping in Gray- 
stone ? ” 

“ I was going to walk back to-morrow, lest the 
Postbridge folks should begin to think I’ve bolted 
without paying my bill.” 

“ They won’t think that. We don’t think that 
way on Dartmoor. . . . Would it be possible for 
you to wait one more day ? ” 

“ Oh, quite. I shall be delighted if I can be of any 
service to you.” 

‘‘ If this is what I imagine it may be,” she said 
thoughtfully, “ I might be glad of your advice. . . .” 

“ It will be entirely at your service, and it will be 
a pleasure to me to wait.” 

“ Thank you ! ... If you would come up to- 
morrow evening. . . . My days are very full as a 
rule, but I will make time somehow to go into this.” 

“If it will help I’ll gladly wait longer. I’m sure 
there’s plenty to see about Graystone.” 

“ Plenty to see,” she smiled, but I could see that 
her thoughts were on the parcel, and I took my 
leave, and went slowly back along the silent shadowy 
lanes, past the other little inn all dark and appa- 
rently asleep, across the bridge over the stream 
whose bubbling laughter was much more audible 
than before, under the big trees by the church, and 
so to my own hostelry and bed. 


c 


18 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


And I lay long awake, thinking of the fair chate- 
laine of the old thatched man^n as she knelt before 
me in her little white chapel, and of the sombre- 
faced man I had seen at Postbridge ; and wondering 
not a little what was in that parcel, and what 
possible use my advice could be in the matter. 

But I was none the less well content that it had 
been — or might be — asked. 


II. 

I was out before breakfast next morning and 
instinctively wandered along the lane I had travelled 
the previous night, and so came presently to the 
little white chapel again. 

The door was at its widest, and when I peeped 
cautiously in over the wall, I saw a coil of shining 
gold plaits bobbing up and down, and its owner, on 
her knees, carefully sweeping out her tiny sanctuary 
with brush and dust-pan. 

It was an entrancing sight. I had strolled up so 
quietly that she had not heard me. The side of her 
face, which was all I could see, showed intensest 
absorption in her task and uttermost devotion to 
see that all was done with most complete perfection. 
I have seen just that same look on a young mother’s 
face as she bathed and powder-puffed her first 
baby. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


19 


Then she caught sight of me and rose to her feet 
with welcoming face. She was wearing a long all- 
enveloping, holland pinafore with red Norwegian 
embroidery on it, and it became her exceedingly 
well. 

She bowed with a slight smile as I lifted the latch 
of the wicket and entered, after kicking any possi- 
bility of dust off my boots and devoutly hoping I 
should not mar her work. Her manner, however, 
showed me that her chapel was to her a Holy of 
Holies, for worship only, not for casual talk, and as 
I passed in she quietly slipped out and disappeared 
into the house. 

She was back in a moment or two without the 
pinafore, and kneeling at her prayers in what was 
evidently her accustomed place, and I knelt also 
and said my own, and then sat quietly watching 
her in the reposeful charm of her surroundings. 

Her devout absorption and obvious aloofness 
from mundane matters were to me a very beautiful 
lesson in religious observance and reverent worship. 

For a full hour we remained so, in a white, un- 
broken, perfection of silence which had in it an 
uplift and healing past the telling. The service of 
the Roman Church had never held for me more than 
a certain aesthetic attraction, but here was a sim- 
plicity and quiet intensity of adoration which I had 
never at any time seen the like of, and which could 
not possibly have been surpassed. 


20 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


I thought many thoughts in that white silent 
hour, and my most wandering ones strayed no 
further afield than the Gentle Shepherd with the 
white lamb and the black one above the crucifix ; 
with the Holy Mother and Child, the Child holding 
a monstrance, on an out jutting granite bracket on 
His right hand, — a group whose exact likeness I 
had never met with before ; — and on His left, 
S. Michael, with lifted hand and drawn sword 
trampling on a vanquished dragon of unusually 
truculent aspect. Him I recognised from his proto- 
type of The Guarded Mount in the Bay of Treacher- 
ous Tides on the Norman coast. 

At the end of the hour the lady of the chapel rose 
silently and passed out, and I followed. 

‘‘ I knew you would come,’’ she said, with a smile. 
‘‘ Everyone comes agam.” 

“ I am not surprised. It is a House of Peace and 
it draws one. ... It is very dear to you.” 

‘‘ Very dear. You see, it is all my very own and 
I am its properly appointed keeper. No hand but 
mine tends it.” 

“ Are there many of your faith round about 
here ? ” 

Almost none. But we have many visitors, and 
some — ^like yourself — are broad-minded enough to 
find benefit by kneeling in my little white house, 
even though they are not of the faith. I am always 
glad when strangers come — and come again.” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


21 


“ And the manuscript ? ” 

‘‘ I have only had time to glance at it. . . . It is 
what I . . . what I thought it might be, and I shall 
be very grateful for your advice in the matter. 
By the evening I shall be ready to talk to you about 
it. Get the people at the inn to put you up some 
lunch, and go along to Hound Tor, and if you feel 
like it, up Hey Tor also. They are both well worth 
while.” 

Which, accordingly, I did, but got no further 
than the first. For the huge, bristling, gray-black 
Hounds of the Tor amply satisfied me, and I lay 
all day among them, delighting in the immensity 
and weirdness of their fantasies, and thinking much 
of the little white chapel and its fair ministrant, of 
the lean dark man whose rooms I was occupying at 
Postbridge, and of the manuscript he had delivered 
to her in so strange a fashion. 

It was a heavenly day of clear vivifying sunshine, 
which set the gray Hounds panting in the heat, and 
the lower lands reeling and quivering like drunken 
things. And it was good simply to lie there looking 
out over the widespread earth, watching the slow 
majestic progression of the high -piled banks of 
snowy cloud as they drifted across the indigo -blue 
sky, and drinking in all the mingled fragrances of 
the Moor distilled by the noonday sun. 

But the gloaming — dimpsey, they call it on Dart- 
moor, I am told — found me back in my corner-seat 


22 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


in the little white chapel, and, as before, my lady 
presently came in, without a glance in my direction, 
and knelt in her accustomed place. 

At the end of an hour she rose and passed out, 
and I followed. 

With a slight movement of the head she invited 
me into the house, and we passed into the room with 
the wavering length-beam in the roof and the burn- 
ing peats on the great iron cobbett. 

She enquired interestedly as to how I had spent 
the day, and then, picking up the parcel of manu- 
script from the table, handed it to me, saying : 
‘‘ Will you please take it back with you to Post- 
bridge, read it very carefully, and when you have 
thought it over come again and tell me if you think 
it should be published.” 

All of which I duly did, thanking my good angel 
for urging me on that first day, and so leading me 
to actual personal acquaintance with “My Lady of 
the Moor.” 

And the experience of reading that manuscript, 
in the very rooms where it was pondered over, and 
to some extent written, was a curious one. It 
brought the writer, whom I had only seen twice, and 
only for a moment or two each time, very vividly 
before me. So very vividly, indeed, that at times he 
seemed to be actually present in the room with me. 
More than once I could have sworn I saw his lean 
dark face and sombre figure in the passages, among 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


23 


the other shadows cast by my candle as I went up 
to bed. And the sensation of his presence was never 
absent from me. 

I was glad, while reading what he had written, 
that I had myself come to know the Lady of the 
Moor, for even the little I had seen of her enabled 
me to enter with vital sympathy into all his feelings 
concerning her. 

In his story he calls her simply “ My Lady,” — ‘‘My 
Lady of the Moor,” — or ‘‘ Beatrice,” and though I 
have since come to know more about her, and she has 
been graciously pleased to accord me somewhat of 
her confidence in this matter, I think it well to leave 
it at that, and “ Beatrice ” and “ My Lady ” she 
remains, so far as this book is concerned. 

I saw her again three days later, — starting 
early from Postbridge, and making a long day 
of it. 

She was sitting in a low chair in a flowery nook 
close by the little white chapel, busily darning 
stockings. She gave me cordial greeting and went 
steadily on with her work while we talked. 

“ Well ? ” she asked. 

‘‘ Well, I have read it all most carefully. And 
now it rests with you. I consider it well worth 
publishing. But ” 

“You are thinking about me in the matter ? ” 

“ Naturally. ... I can see benefit to many in 
the story, but — once more . . .” 


24 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“You mean the personal bits — about myself — 
and . . 

“ Exactly. It is nothing if not personal. The 
actuality and humanity of it all make it what 
it is.’’ 

“ I should never consider myself in such a case. 
I never have. What does oneself matter if one can 
perhaps accomplish some little good in the world ? ” 

“ And . . . the other ? ” 

“ He will make no objection. I will answer for 
him. That amazes you ? ” 

“ It does — ^in the light of all this,” — I indicated 
the manuscript. 

“ Ah, — that shows only the one side of him. 
The other side, which is fully known perhaps to 
none but myself, is something quite different. 
By nature he is a great man ... a very great man, 
and yet the evil weeds have grown up in him along- 
side the fair white lilies, and at times have over- 
grown them. It is amazing, I know. It is hard to 
understand, — indeed, one cannot understand. But 
these things are, and God understands, I am sure, 
and His pity and forgiveness are infinite. . . '^^You 
need have no fear of the other man objecting. 
Indeed, once — long ago — he asked me to write his 
story if I thought it could be of service to the world. 
But that, of course, was not possible for me. It was 
for some man to do, and it is to me an amazing 
thing that that man should, of all men, be Noel 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


25 


Daunt. And yet, — it is fitting. Perhaps no other 
could have done it so well. May I count on your 
assistance in the matter then ? ” 

To the fullest extent of my powers.” 

“ I thank you, sir. Then we will have it pub- 
lished. You see what he says at the beginning ? ” 
— I nodded. — “ He may never see it, but he will 
know that it has been done and I think he will be 
glad. . . . And I shall be glad to have given him 
that additional joy.” 

Now that was how I came to make the personal 
acquaintance of “ My Lady of the Moor,” — an 
acquaintance which has ripened into a warm — and 
for me a most uplifting — friendship. 

And this that follows is the manuscript left by 
Noel Daunt in the little white chapel at Heysham 
House. 

Throughout, you will see, as I have said, that he 
has no name for the Lady of the Moor but “ My 
Lady,” or now and again — “ Beatrice,” and that is 
of right her name and surely of prophetic fore- 
knowledge in its conference. For ‘ Conferrer of 
Blessiff|s ’ in supremest measure she undoubtedly 
was to him, as indeed she is to all with whom she 
comes in contact. 

And once, when discussing his manuscript with 
her, and I remarked upon this point — that it was 
not unusual for the characters in a story to bear 
surnames also, she turned the battery of her blue-gray 


26 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


eyes upon me, and with a whimsical dance in 
them, said : “ Surnames always strike me as a 

trifle vulgar, you know. Royalties never use them, 
so why should I ? Am I not Queen of the 
Moor ? ” 

So Beatrice, by her own edict, she remains, and 
that is all-sufficient. 

In the same way, the other principal character 
is referred to in Daunt’s manuscript only as ‘‘ That 
other ” or “ Lancelot.’’ This was at once My Lady’s 
name for, and description of, him. 

“ I believed him Galahad and he proved but 
Lancelot,” she once explained to Daunt. 

Daunt himself knew him by no other name, till 
near the end. And for myself, it is only within the 
last month that I have learned his rightful name and 
standing — to my very great astonishment. 

Furthermore — certain omissions respecting My 
Lady’s home-life and surroundings may possibly 
strike an unusually keen and observant reader. 

As to that point, all I can say is that, when the 
manuscript was handed to me, wherever Daunt had 
allowed himself to trespass on such personal matters 
— and I can weU understand his enjoyment in filling 
in to the best of his powers his careful picture of 
My Lady and her background, — all such references 
were ruthlessly stricken out by My Lady’s own 
vigorous copying-ink pencil. 

And when I ventured to suggest that they would 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


27 


add charm to the story, and that their deletion left 
gaps, she said, in that conclusive way of hers which 
carried with it a suggestion of rudeness in further 
argument, — ‘‘ No matter. All is told that need be 
told. My private life concerns nobody but myself. 
If it leaves me somewhat nebulous — so much the 
better.’* 


JOHN OXENHAM 


1 . 


(From the manuscript of Noel Daunt. This was 
on two loose pages towards the end of the MS. It was 
obviously written later on, hut it seems well to place 
it here.) 

I HAVE written out these notes solely for you, my 
dear Lady of the Moor, so that you may have 
a still clearer understanding of my life than ever 
you have had up to now. 

No one has ever come to so close an understanding 
of it all as yourself. No one but yourself, indeed, 
has ever cared to understand it. But, as you will 
see, there were things in it which, for your own 
peace of mind, I judged it wiser to keep still buried 
in the past. 

The necessity for that is now happily ended, and 
if you ever read this — as I hope may come to pass — 
you will, I know, give me no blame for withholding 
from you that which I did. 

I am writing also because it is an unspeakable 
joy to me to live over again these later days, even 
on paper, and thereby to give some kind of utterance 
to my feelings about your dear self and all you have 
28 


29 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

done for me. God alone knows how great a thing 
that is. May He reward you ! 

It is all very inadequate, I know, for there are 
feelings deeper than all the words in the world can 
express. And such are mine with regard to this 
whole matter. 

But — well, you will understand, as you have so 
wonderfully understood all along. 

By the time your eyes light on these words I shall 
be on my way to join the new army they are forming, 
— not in my own name, of course, but in that by 
which you have known me best. If I get out to the 
Front, as I hope to do, I do not think it likely I shall 
ever return. Indeed, I fervently hope and pray 
that this poor life, which by me was dedicated to 
such unworthy ends, and by you redeemed there- 
from, may be serviceably given in a cause which I 
believe to be absolutely just and right. 

We are in for a bitter life -struggle. Every man 
we can muster will be needed. I can see that. And 
— ^remembering the death of shame that might have 
been mine, my highest hope is to give my life 
worthily for my country. ' 

If that happily comes to pass, you will know that 
I went just as you would have me go, — doing my 
duty at last and to the last, and blessing your name 
with my latest breath. 

My good friend and solicitor, Henry Denver, will 
notify you of my death, and you will put up a 


30 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


prayer for me now and again in your little white 
chapel on the Moor. 

Everything of which I am possessed I leave to 
you and beg your acceptance of. No one could 
put it to better service than yourself. It is all in 
Denver’s good hands, and he will relieve you of all 
trouble in the matter. 

I shall know all about your happiness. You saved 
my soul alive and so have made that possible to me. 
And I shall rejoice mightily with you. 

If it is permitted to me, I hope to be nearer to you 
after my death than was ever possible to me in this 
life. And I have hope, which at times amounts to 
assurance, that that may be so. 

May God give you every good ! 


2 . 



HETHER this record of the strange and 


» ▼ wonderful things that have befallen me on 
this once only-to-be-cursed, — but now ever-to-be- 
blessed, — Dartmoor will ever see the light, will 
depend upon the pleasure and wisdom of one in 
whom I have most perfect confidence, and whom I 
hold in admiration and affection beyond my power 
to express. 

For my untellable joy in the re-living of these 
later days, I have set it all down as simply and clearly 
and truthfully as it has been permitted me to do, — 
and also in the sure hope and belief that — if it 
should be given to the world — it may in some small 
way minister to the cheer and consolation of other 
sorely-wounded souls, — broken like myself, not on 
the field of honour, but in the grinding mills of God 
for our downcasting and uplifting. 

For, different as we all are in outward appearance, 
the very man within us derives after all from one 
common stock, and so is subject to all its elemental 
faculties — for good or for ill. The hopes, desires, 
and passions, which go to the making of men, are 
shared in varying degree by all alike, — rampant in 


31 


32 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


some, latent in others, and by some held sternly 
under control. To these last alone is happiness 
possible. 

It is the very simple story of a soul in bondage 
(see Note 1 below) and of a white saint who loosed 
his (their) chains and lifted him (them) out of 
prison by the pure might of her own supreme 
purity and goodness. 

(Note 1. This is altered in the MS, to “two 
souls ” ; and “ his ” and “ him ” in the rest of the 
sentence to “ their ” and “ them.” When Daunt 
began his story he had no knowledge, of course, of 
its very strange later development. Throughout I 
find odd little discrepancies resulting from his methods 
of work. 

As you will see, he necessarily began reminiscently, 
— tracing with sufficient detail the circumstances 
which landed him in Dartmoor Prison. After his 
release ‘ on ticket,^ while wandering on the Continent 
until his probationary term should have expired, he 
evidently began jotting down notes of anything of 
interest. It was only on his return to England, a free 
man, that he took to writing, from day to day, about 
what concerned him most deeply. 

This mixed method seems to me not ivithout its 
advantages. It enabled him to view the past as 
somewhat of a whole, and when the time came for 
better things he was able to set them down red-hot 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


33 


fro7n the anvil of his newly -quickened soul. Then, 
at the end, when matters went with a rush, he had 
no time to correct and rearrange, as no doubt he had 
intended. And so, as I say, occasional discrepancies 
must he overlooked, and later interpolations per- 
mitted, for sake of the benefit to the whole. The 
more obvious of the interpolations I have placed 
within brackets, though possibly some may have 
escaped me. — J. 0.) 

It is not likely that my name, Noel Daunt, will 
cause any stir in the memory of any, save perhaps 
of two or three with whom I was on more or less 
friendly terms some ten years ago, and possibly of 
an official here and there with whom I had to come 
into momentary contact after my release from 
Princetown JaH. 

The public memory is amazingly short, — as short 
almost as the proverbial sparrow’s. But, between 
nine and ten years ago, the name was briefly 
notorious as that of a man who only escaped the 
gallows by his own inefficiency in the elementary art 
of murder. 

I did, in fact, my very best to kill another man, 
for — as I held then — good and sufficient reason, — 
(interpolated later) — and am still only persuaded 
therefrom by the sweet compulsion of my dear 
Lady of the Moor. 

The killing of a man is not so uncommon a matter 


34 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


as necessarily to entail any great notoriety on his 
slayer, unless the unsavoury details happen to 
appeal to the lowest instincts of the man in the 
street and the woman in the kitchen. 

But in this case the man who came within a hair’s 
breadth of death was of high birth and position. 
His would-be slayer was of no birth or position — 
merely a man who wrote for the newspapers and 
so on. And no reason for the crime was forth- 
coming, even at the trial. 

If the revolver — a new one — had not thrown high, 
both that other and myself would long since have 
appeared before that Higher Tribunal which sees 
the cause as well as the effect and mingles infinite 
mercy with the justice of its judgments. 

And while it is true that the desire to repair my 
first blunder and complete my self-appointed task 
was all that kept me alive during my long imprison- 
ment, that has now been taken from me entirely 
by the ministrations of my white Lady, and I have 
even come to thank God that it is so. 

I said that that was all that kept me alive, — but 
there I spoke as a man. I have been led to the 
knowledge that God’s ways are beyond us. For no 
one knows more about that than my dear Lady of 
the Moor, and she it was who taught me. 

Yes, it is true, I love to write her name and to 
dwell upon it. For whenever I do so I see her 
sweet and gracious face as she strove with me, and 


MY LADY OP THE MOOR 


35 


led me by degrees out of Darkness into the outer 
rim of her own marvellous Light. 

I was born in the north of Ireland, my father was 
an Inverness man and my mother was of Belfast. 
He was a doctor with a considerable practice in the 
town of Londonderry. He was also a shrewd man 
of business and his investments invariably turned 
out well. I have none but the most gracious 
memories of both of them. These reproach me 
now. 

He saw to it that I had a good education, having 
enjoyed the same himseK and knowing the necessity 
and value of it in these strenuous days of the “ weak 
to the wall.” 

She instilled into me, as a boy, the tenets of her 
own sterling, if somewhat narrow, religious beliefs, 
which held most other sects in doubtful tolerance 
and Catholics in especial abhorrence. Perhaps she 
held the reins too tightly. Perhaps an expanding 
mind needed more expansive outlook. After her 
death the practice of religious observance gradually 
lost its hold upon me. I cannot doubt that I have 
suffered therefrom. 

Both my father and mother died during the great 
fever epidemic, and I was left with hardly a relative 
in the world except my sister Honor, ten years my 
junior. There had been a brother and sister in 
between, but they both died in their first year. 


36 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


Honor was barely in her teens when our parents 
died, and that perhaps accounts for much. She was 
strikingly pretty, even as a girl of thirteen, with dark 
hair and laughing dark-blue eyes, and showed the 
promise of an unusually beautiful woman. 

From the first day I made her acquaintance, the 
loveliest baby imaginable in my mother’s arms, she 
was as the apple of my eye to me. I was a boisterous 
schoolboy of ten, scornful, I remember, of girls as 
inferior in the matter of games and deplorably lax 
regarding rules and boyish codes of honour. But 
this sparkling dark-eyed mite was quite a distinct 
breed of girl. She was my own and she filled my 
heart. 

And to the very end that love for her never 
lessened or wavered. I thank God it lasted to the 
end — to the very end. 

She was always somewhat self-willed and un- 
biddable, determined on her own way, and as 
difficult to turn from it as a mule, even when it was 
provably not the best way. 

My own inclination had led me to letters, — m a 
small way so far, but still holding out sufficient 
inducement to push on towards the larger prizes 
ahead. 

My father would have had it otherwise. He never 
could understand the aversion I had for his own 
most honourable profession. But there it was, and 
he was too wise a man to press me into it against my 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


37 


will. Little as he thought, from the practical point 
of view, of writing as a living, he had a profound 
belief in a man doing, if it were at all possible, the 
thing he felt most drawn to and best fitted for. 

At any rate, you need never starve, my boy,” 
he said, ‘‘ though I understand genius produces its 
best work under that most unnatural condition. 
If the writing provides only bread and butter, my 
little bit will help towards the jam, and it will 
make all the difference in life to you to be doing 
what you are keen to do,” — and so I stuck to 
letters. 

Our little patrimony, when they were both so 
suddenly taken from us, amounted to about £500 
a year, divided equally between us. But the capital 
was to remain invested as it then was until Honor 
was twenty-one, when, if we desired it, equitable 
division was to be made. 

Honor, conscious already of the influence of her 
looks, and set on a high future for herself, insisted 
on going to a first-rate boarding-school in England. 
Where — she did not care, — only that it must be in 
England, and of the best. After that she had views 
of possible college, though how she came by them, 
or what ultimate end she envisaged, I could not 
find out. Possibly one of her mistresses had been 
at Girton or Newnham, and from her she had 
imbibed notions of the freedom and spaciousness of 
college life. 


38 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


So, after careful enquiry, I entered her at that 
great private school in the south of England, near 
one of the well-known watering-places, which, under 
the wise and skilful guidance of its principals, has 
attained something of the nature of a national 
institution. 

There she was perfectly happy and developed 
amazingly in every way. The fees and her dress-and- 
pocket-money took nearly all her income, but that 
did not trouble her in the slightest. She had her 
way and was more than content. 

For myself, with such small reputation and creden- 
tials as my prentice-work had earned, and my small 
but always sure income of £250 a year, I came up 
to London, found rooms in the Temple, looking out 
on to Fountain Court, — somewhat of a bird’s-eye 
view indeed, and the rooms were neither large nor 
any too convenient, but they sufficed and I was even 
proud of them, — and laid my fountain-pen in rest 
for a determined tilt at the world and fame. 

I learned presently from my neighbours that my 
immediate predecessor in those rooms had also been 
a would-be literary man, who, having no £250 a 
year behind him, had quietly poisoned himself in 
my bedroom ; and more than once, when things 
were contrary, I wished he had done it elsewhere. 

So lugubriously indeed did his stark dead face, 
on which I had never set eyes except in imagination, 
weigh upon me, that at last I could stand him no 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


39 


longer and I sought other quarters more cheerful in 
repute if not so in aspect. 

In the country I had felt sure of myself and scoffed 
at the very notion of failure. In the mighty whirl 
of London I felt, for many months, no more than 
an outcast grain of dust, of less than no account, 
and an importunate nuisance to long-suffering 
editors who never seemed to want exactly the wares 
I had to offer. 

But I was well fixed for hanging on, and I hung 
on. And, at last, having failed to drown me, the 
tide turned and work began to come my way. I 
made some friends also, and more acquaintances, 
and life wore a cheerier aspect. And in time, by 
sheer sticking power and such ability as was in me, 
I had won a certain position and had all I could do, 
though not yet quite of the class of work I aimed at. 

Honor passed on to Newnham when she was 
nineteen, and after two years there expressed herself 
as ready to join me in London, and suggested a flat 
with all possible conveniences and a good outlook. 

I had, of course, noted the surprising development 
in her looks and bearing whenever I had run down 
to see her at school, and on our holidays together. 
We had been over to Brittany, to Paris, and once 
as far as Switzerland. 

During her terms at Newnham I had seen less of 
her. She had frequently elected to spend her vaca- 
tions with one or other of her many college friends, 


40 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


which I recognised as perfectly natural. When she 
joined me at last in London I thought her the most 
beautiful creature I had ever set eyes on. 

She had more than mere outward beauty too. 
Her great dark-blue eyes brimmed with quick and 
fervent appreciation of life. She was merry-hearted 
and joyous of speech and laughter. Her wit was as 
nimble as her tongue, and her laugh was irresistible. 
She played well, sang well, and danced like a nymph. 

To see her holding a circle of men enchanted with 
the rapid play of her varied armoury was a sight 
indeed. More than once I wondered on what or on 
whom she would set her heart next, and what would 
be the end of it all. 

If one could only foresee. . . . 

She had that genius for friendship which is the 
natural heritage of a beautiful and vivacious woman. 
(Rather, I would call it a wonderful faculty for 
making friends. For of late the word friendship has 
come to mean something very different and of 
infinitely finer quality to me. That is one more of 
the things My Lady has taught me.) 

My way was naturally one of strenuous hard work. 
But I had no complaint to make on that score. 
I had hungered and thirsted for work, and now that 
it had come at last I gave myself to it heart and soul. 

Honor’s was the primrose path, and right merrily 
she danced along it. We met, though not always, at 
breakfast, and occasionally at dinner. More often. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


41 


of course, when I was busy on the work I liked best 
at home, though, even then, it was a rare thing for 
us to pass the evening together. Dinners, dances, 
theatre-parties, picnic -parties, river-parties claimed 
her in an unceasing round, and would accept no 
denials from one who added so much to their gaiety 
and success. Where Honor Daunt chose to grace 
these everything always went well, and Honor’s 
appetite for the joys of life was insatiable. 

Was I lacking in the matter in any respect ? 
I have racked my heart with the question these 
many years and been tortured by it. 

But, in truth, though I have not failed to take 
blame to myself, I do not see what I could have done. 

For Honor was completely independent of me. 
She went her own way with her own friends. They 
were chiefly among her old school- and college- 
mates and those whom she came to know through 
them. They were of a higher social level than our- 
selves, though in the glimpses I got of them occa- 
sionally I never saw one among them who could 
compare with Honor. She was the life and soul 
of every merry assemblage, and yet so perfectly 
well-bred and so completely mistress of herself that 
thought of possible danger to her never entered my 
over-busy head. 

She had known all, or most of, these people for 
years. She had grown up with them. Companions 
she was bound to have. What better companions 


42 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


than these whom she knew so well, and by whom she 
was so well known and held in such liking and 
esteem ? 

And yet — perhaps I was to blame, though sure 
am I that no matter how I had tried I could never 
have constrained her to quieter ways. It would only 
have resulted in division between us, and she was 
too dear to my soul for me to risk that. 

Our means — though I was at this time making as 
much again as our combined incomes — did not of 
course permit us to entertain very much. But 
Honor, with all her joyous lightsomeness, was an 
excellent housekeeper, and she managed the finances 
of our small establishment, and the cook and maid 
who administered it, with admirable skill and tact, 
faculties she probably inherited from our mother, 
who was a most notable housewife. 

So occasionally she gave little parties for her 
chosen ones — always perfectly thought out to the 
very last leaf and flower, — and it was there that I 
came into contact with her friends. But it was her- 
self they wanted, not at all the little retqrn she 
could make for their unbounded hospitalities. 

Beyond those I met in this way I knew very little 
of her large acquaintance outside. From what I did 
see I accepted the rest in most perfect faith and never 
dreamed of ill. 

I had at this time a regular engagement on one 
of the better-class London Weeklies, which, while 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


43 


contributing handsomely to my income, still left me 
a certain amount of time for my own more personal 
and much more enjoyable work. And as a rule all 
that was required of me could be done in London. 

Then the ever-growing unrest in certain sections 
of the workers up north began to exercise the public 
mind, and I was sent by my editor to look into and 
ventilate the matter with such acumen and common 
sense as I could bring to bear upon it. And this 
took me away three or four days every week for close 
on two months. It has been an occasional, and 
almost the only, grain 'Of comfort to me in my darker 
times to think that the work I did up there made for 
justice and the righting of some wrongs. 

Everything seemed going well with us. We were 
both, in our own ways, busy and happy. Of Honor’s 
happiness there could be no possible doubt. Never 
had I known her so radiantly beautiful with the 
mere joy of living. 

Then, like the proverbial bolt from the blue, the 
blow fell that broke my life and thrust me at last 
to the very gates of hell. 

I returned from the north, one week-end, to find 
Honor gone, leaving behind her only a brief note of 
partial and most tantalising explanation. 

“ Dear old No., 

“ Don’t be shocked ! — and don’t worry ! 
I have gone with the only man in the world. We 


44 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


are to be married in Paris, and I will write more 
fully afterwards. He is my very heart’s desire, — 
the — only — man ! And I am happiest of the 
happy. Forgive — 

“ Your loving 

“ Honor.” 

I was utterly confounded. I had had no remotest 
idea that her affections had settled on any specially 
favoured suitor. 

Many, I had not doubted, would have rejoiced 
to fill that high office, but my limited opportunities 
had afforded me no chance of making their ac- 
quaintance. She had had scores of friends of whom 
I knew nothing. 

I was absolutely at sea in the matter, without so 
much as one single clue to guide me which way to 
turn. 

(Indeed, if I had only known it, my feet were even 
then stepping into the black waters which would by 
this time have rolled over my soul, but for my dear 
Lady of the Moor. 

But there is much to tell before I come to her, 
and for a proper understanding of all she has done 
for me, it has got to be told.) 

Groping like a man in the dark for some thread, 
however small, I questioned the maids. I had to 
do something, for my mind was in a whirl of anxious 
doubts, and at my heart there was a little icy finget 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


45 


of fear. I knew so much more of the possibilities 
of men than any girl possibly could know. 

It might be absolutely all right. The man might 
be all she believed him. He must certainly be some- 
thing very much above the common to have captured 
Honor’s heart so completely. 

And — only too well I knew — it might be abso- 
lutely all wrong, — as wrong as hell itself. Men, — 
God in heaven ! — men, from the point of view of 
Fleet Street, were mostly — or, at all events, were 
mostly said to be, — all wrong. The stories one heard 
of even the highest and most publicly esteemed ! 
One wondered sometimes if peradventure even ten 
reasonably decent-living men were to be found in 
the whole of London. 

And Honor, I knew only too well, would give 
herself unstintedly to the man she loved. 

I prayed again in those days, as I had never prayed 
before — for I had latterly drifted out of the habit 
of prayer — I prayed in very anguish of heart that 
the man, whoever he was, might be all he should be, 
— or that, if he were not, he might become so for 
Honor’s sake. 

Those were, up till then, the blackest, sickest days 
of my life. I have had blacker since, but none more 
sickening in the feeling of utter, blind, helpless 
misery. For in my blacker, later days, I always 
had in me that which kept me screwed tight up to 
the pitch of a deadly and unswerving resolve. 


46 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


Of the two maids, only Lucille, the housemaid, 
could give me any information, and little to the 
purpose at that. Indeed she obviously looked upon 
the whole proceeding as perfectly right and natural, 
and seemed to think this anxiety — which I did my 
best not to show, but which she nevertheless per- 
ceived — regarding Miss Honor’s marriage as not 
only quite unnecessary, but even as unbecoming and 
lacking in brotherly feeling. 

She had seen Miss Honor’s gentleman. Yes. He 
had called for her on two occasions, and finally on 
the day when, with her travelling trunk ready packed, 
she awaited him — as I could picture, from the girl’s 
account — with her whole being on the spring for the 
great adventure. 

His name she had never heard. 

His appearance. Oh — one of the finest, grandest, 
noblest-looking gentlemen she had ever set eyes on. 
Might have been a prince or a duke or anything. 
Nothing hardly could be too big for him, and so on. 
All of which, from the identification point of view, 
was valueless. 

I could do nothing but wait for Honor’s promised 
letter, and each day’s delay in its arrival made my 
heart grow sicker. 

I fought away my fears in the daytime and kept 
them at bay by strenuous work, though work had 
never been so difficult and distasteful to me 
before. But in the night the sick fears grew and 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 47 

grew, and rode me like hell-hounds, and gave me 
no rest. 

No letter reached me. 

I grew sick, bodily, mentally, spiritually. My 
Honor, the dearest and nearest thing life had held 
for me, had gone out into the great black void and 
was no more. 

I thought of her as the radiant dark-eyed baby, 
lying like some wonderful new jewel in our mother’s 
arms, — as the sparkling, happy school-girl, with the 
flashing laugh and joyous word for everybody, — as 
the beautiful graceful woman who could bend any 
man to her will by a word and a smile. 

And now, some man had bent her to his will and 
she was gone — out into the void. 

Who could that man be ? 


3 . 


T hat resolved itself into the one and only 
question of my life. For if he had wronged 
her he should most assuredly pay the price. And 
the price was death. 

I gave up my newspaper work. In justice to the 
paper and myself I could not go on with it. I tried 
my best to settle to my other writings. But it was 
impossible. Honor, and what had become of her, 
filled my mind and heart to the exclusion of all 
else. 

No other girl or woman had ever quickened my 
pulse or troubled my heart. I had not been thrown 
much into the way of women, beyond such as 
Honor’s wealthy acquaintances, and they had no 
appeal for me. Handsome many of them were, and 
always exquisitely gowned, but that always seemed 
to me to be the extent of them ; — ^that and a crazy 
pursuit of pleasures, — which all seemed only to bore 
them to death — solely for the purpose of getting 
through their futile days. 

So there was nothing whatever to distract my 
mind and heart from their painful broodings, and 
these told heavily on me. 

48 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


49 


My work grew distasteful to me. My mind went 
wandering persistently after Honor, in an agony of 
painful wondering as to what could have become 
of her, and I could settle to nothing. 

I had been at work on a novel from which I had 
hoped much. But the imagined troubles and trials 
of my brain-folk were as nothing to the actualities 
of my own, — pale, bloodless phantoms with no 
breath of life in them, they did not interest even 
myself. 

I took to restless, purposeless wanderings, with 
some vague hope in me, possibly, that somewhere 
I might chance upon her. But the simple fact was 
that the shock of it all had jangled me completely, 
and I scarce knew what I did and cared still less. 

I grew lean and haggard. 

One of my Fleet Street friends, — Johnstone of the 
‘ Westminster,* I remember it was, — met me one 
day up West, and after a surprised but still cordial 
greeting, linked his arm in mine and tried with 
quiet insistence to draw me out as to my trouble. 

But — by nature reserved, and most of all in all 
that concerned my deeper feelings — how could I 
possibly disclose the matter ? I was grateful to 
him for his excellent intention, but was unable to 
respond to it. Finally he gave me a good-natured 
homily on the mistake and risks of using drugs, and 
went his way dubiously in spite of my scornful 
denials. 


E 


50 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


He was an excellent fellow and a true friend, and 
proved it later. But even to him I could not 
unburden myself. 

One day, coming back to the flat, — I had kept 
things going just as when Honor was there, in the 
hope that she would yet return, and with the feeling 
that on the merest chance of that it must still be 
waiting there, just as it always had been, ready to 
welcome her. But I have no doubt the girls had a 
very easy time of it and did much as they pleased, 
for I was easily satisfied. 

One day, coming in tired from one of these long 
futile ramblings, Lucille met me at the sitting- 
room door with a face all agog with news of some 
kind. 

Here he is, sir ! she burst out. ‘‘ I’ve got 
him ! ” 

“ Who ? ” 

“ Miss Honor’s young — er — fiongsay.” 

“ Where then ? ” I snapped. 

And she picked up an illustrated society paper — 
one of Honor’s ordering which I had neglected to 
stop — and pointed triumphantly to the portrait of 
a man, illustrating some inconsequential personal 
paragraph. 

I bent eagerly to look, and straightened up again 
with a savage click of the tongue and a snappish, 
“ Nonsense, girl ! You don’t know what you’re 
talking about.” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


51 


‘‘You bet — beg pardon, sir ! — I mean, it’s him 
to the life, I’d swear it on the book in any court in 
the land, divorce or Old Bailey. He’s not the kind 
you’d overlook in a crowd. It’s him, sir, I swear.” 

“ All right, Lucille, swear away if you want to. 
But don’t say it out loud or you’ll be getting into 
trouble. You’re mistaken. That’s all I can say.” 

For it was the portrait of a man of high birth and 
higher reputation, a man of eminence in military 
circles, an expert in his own special branch, whose 
name was known and held in honour throughout 
the land. LuciUe had been misled by some acci- 
dental likeness. Every man, they say, has a double. 

Nevertheless, the insidious suggestion stuck and 
rankled. 

Had I heard whispers concerning this man ? 
I had heard whispers concerning almost every man, 
and appraised them at their worth. 

Was he one of the whited sepulchres ? — one of the 
wolves in sheep’s clothing ? — one of the wrong ones 
whom the world accepts because it does not Imow ? 

I could not tell. I had heard so much. But at 
last when, after days of savage brooding, the barb 
pricked hard in my heart, I wandered one evening 
down to Fleet Street, lit upon some old acquain- 
tances in one of their haunts there, and in time 
turned the focus of talk upon the man in question 
. . . and got more than enough for my peace of 
mind. 


52 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


If half that was sub-rosaly hinted at was true 
. . . Lucille might be right after all. But one could 
not be sure that there was any grain of truth in it. 
Does not every public man notoriously walk with 
his head in a cloud of poisonous flies ? 

Nevertheless, the possibility took root and fes- 
tered, and poisoned my days and my nights. No 
matter who he was or what, if he had done ill by 
Honor, my mind was made up that the price should 
be his life. 

I quietly made enquiries as to where the man in 
question was and had been of late. 

He was said to be abroad. I determined to go 
abroad also. I was doing less than no good at home. 
As well go abroad and possibly find diversion from 
my nightmare in change of scene. 

And, no doubt, down in my heart was some vague 
kind of a hope that, since that other man was also 
somewhere abroad, chance might bring me across 
him, — which only shows to what depth of childish- 
ness the long-continued brooding of a jangled mind 
can bring one. 

It was four months since Honor left me. She had 
obviously no intention of returning. I dismissed 
the girls, stored the furniture, placed the flat in an 
agent’s hands, and presently found myself in Paris. 

But even Paris depends as much on one’s inner 
feelings and appreciation as on its own powers to 
interest and amuse, and I found myself detesting it. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


53 


In any case, it was out of the question that she 
would linger there, where every tenth person she 
came across might be an old acquaintance. 

I rambled further afield, — into Switzerland, Tyrol, 
the Bavarian Alps, up into Bohemia, to Vienna, to 
Buda-Pesth, to Linz. There was no knowing where 
such a man might go — if he were the man, — but 
doubtless — nay, surely — to the most unlikely and 
impossible places he could think of. And they were 
innumerable, and search was idiotic, and I knew it, 
and yet I rambled on, from one unlikely place to 
another, and found nothing of course. I was a 
modern Wandering Jew, finding no rest for the sole 
of my foot and no solace for my troubled mind. 

I came down through Styria and Carinthia, and 
Carniola to Trieste and Venice, rambled through 
the towns and villages of the Campagna and Umbria 
and Tuscany, and found myself, after close on a 
year’s wanderings, on the Riviera. 

I went to Monaco, expecting nothing but possible 
distraction, — and found something of what I had 
sought so long. 

I had passed the censors of the ante-chamber and 
rambled into the rooms. The tables were crowded 
as usual, especially the great roulette-table, and I 
sauntered round the skirts of the crowd, aloofly 
interested to learn what the excitement was. 

‘‘ Tiens ! ” said one to another at my side. 
“ Qu’elle jeu ce soir, la Belle Russe ! ” 


54 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


‘‘ Et gagne, mon beau. EUe a bien la chance 
de ” 

And then a movement in the crowd edged me 
nearer the table and my eyes were drawn to the 
centre of interest. 

It was a woman of most striking appearance, 
young, graceful, beautiful, and most tastefully and 
beautifully dressed. She was playing maximum 
every time and winning tremendously. And her 
face was a curious mixture of aloofness and interest. 
The notes and gold flung towards her by the croupier 
she thrust carelessly to the pile in front of her, un- 
counted, scarce looked at. The momentary dance 
of the ball in the whirling wheel, and the announce- 
ments of the result, alone quickened her interest for 
a moment. 

I was gazing fascinated, hypnotised, for it was 
undoubtedly Honor. It could be nobody but Honor. 
But the year had made great changes in her. 

The beautiful face had on it just a touch of hard- 
ness, — only a touch, and another might never have 
perceived it. But to me, who had known only the 
purest joy of life in that face, the loss of it was 
painfully apparent. It was all Honor’s beauty and 
more, but it lacked that one saving element. There 
was more strength in it, but there was no hope, — 
instead, a careless, somewhat haughty insouciance, 
an aloofness, a contempt of life and everything in it 
that told me much. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


65 


Her neighbours at the table had taken to following 
her lead with their trifling stakes. She paid not the 
slightest attention to them. 

There is undoubtedly compulsion in a fixed, un- 
swerving gaze, and possibly my vehement thought 
found its way to hers. She raised her head suddenly 
and swept the opposing circle of faces with those 
wonderful dark-blue eyes of hers, with a questioning 
look. It settled on mine and stopped. 

A touch of additional colour wavered in her face 
for a moment — and the spell was broken. 

She turned again to her play, but now everything 
went against her. Her pile of notes and gold 
dwindled rapidly. I wondered she did not rise at 
once and save what was left. Perhaps it was a 
point of honour with her. 

When the table in front of her was at last bare, 
she beckoned to a white-silk-stockinged attendant 
who was circling about with glasses of champagne 
on a silver salver. She quietly drank a glass and rose, 
passed like a queen through the lane of staring faces 
that opened before her, and swept out of the rooms. 

I followed her — out into the soft velvet beauty 
of the southern night. She turned into the gardens 
and took the path among the motionless palms and 
cacti and oleanders to the sea-walk, and presently 
put her arms on the stone balustrade and leaned 
over, looking down into the tideless sea. Dark, 
soundless waters below, glittering stars in a dark 


56 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


sky above, the garish white buildings of the Casino 
on the right all ablaze with lights and resonant with 
the music of the band, and her thoughts as she 
leaned there waiting for me. . . . 

“ Honor ! ” — and I did my utmost to keep any 
slightest tone of reproach out of my voice. 

‘‘ Well ? — her voice had lost all its fluty joyous- 
ness. It was a little hard, like her face — to me, at all 
events, though it was a very sweet voice still, — even 
to me. 

“ Oh — my dear ! — my dear ! ” — I could not help 
it, for my heart felt like to burst. 

“ Don’t, No. ! . . . I’m past all that. It’s too 
late. I burned my boats ” 

‘‘ Dear ! It is never too late.” 

“ I know better.” 

“ Thank God, I’ve found you at last. I have 
searched and searched ” 

“ Why did you ? ” 

“ Why ? Can you ask, dear ? Because you are 
more to me than anything in life. Oh, come away 
and we will start afresh.” 

“ Too late, No. ! I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry it’s 
turned out so. Believe me, it was not what I 
intended. ...” 

“ Oh ! ” I groaned. “ Tell me, dear ! How was 
it ? . . . Who was it ? ” 

“ As if I would ! ” she said, with scathing scorn. 
“ Lay it all to my charge ” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


57 


“ I don’t. I won’t. You have just said you 
never intended it to turn out so. And I know it. 
You could not. You ! . . . Oh, my dear ! ” 

“ No, ... it is true. ... I did not intend it. 
But it fell out so, and there is no more to be said. 
. . . And, you see,” she said softly, and truly as 
though the words held sweet savour for her, — I 
love him still.” 

“ You — ^love him still ! It is not possible, — the 
scoundrel ! ” 

“ Not only possible, but so,” she said, with quiet 
insistence. ‘‘ And nothing will ever alter it.” 

“ Are you with him still ? ” 

“ Oh no. We parted months ago. Here they take 
me for a Russian. We need not go into that.” 

“ Have you money ? I saw you losing terribly 
in there.” 

“ Your fault,” she said quietly, but with no com- 
plaint in it. “ But it’s of no consequence. I had 
won it all before losing it. I have plenty. . . . And 
you. No.?” 

I shook my head. I could not tell her that her 
going in that way had broken my life and left me 
crippled of hope or concern about myself. 

“ I have been constantly on the look-out for the 
book,” she said. 

“ It hangs fire. I have had . . . other things 
that took all my time.” 

It was in my mind, and much within my desire. 


58 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


to question her further, — as to the present — and the 
future, — and, if the chance offered, somewhat more 
as to the past. But it was mightily difficult, and 
while I was still trying to frame my enquiries in 
terms of least offence, she saw through me and put 
an end to it all with a quiet but evidently final, 
I must get back to my hotel. No, — you must not 
come. No. ! Stop here, please. It would not do for 
me to be seen with you — or anyone else.” 

‘‘ Where are you staying ? Surely I may call on 
you. There is so very much ” 

“ No, you can’t call on me. Be here to-morrow 
night about this time and I will see ...” and she 
went swiftly through the dark alleys between the 
motionless palms, and after due interval I went 
back to my little hotel in Monaco. 

I was there, as she had appointed, the next night 
and the next, and every night for a week. But she 
never came, and cautious, casual enquiry at last 
informed me that La Belle Russe had left the 
principality the morning after we met. 

Honor had deliberately gone out into the void 
again. 

I could do no more. Our meeting, and still more 
this abrupt and self-imposed parting, wounded me 
sorely. It was no good seeking her further. She 
had shown me only too plainly that it was her wish 
to be left alone, — left to go her own way to the 
appointed end, whatever that might be. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


59 


I was sick of wanderings. Indeed, I was sick of 
life, — sick of my fellows and all the common rounds 
and futile strivings. 

I would very gratefully have ended my own broken 
life there and then, but that in me there was an ever- 
growing desire and determination that, before I 
myself went out, that other man, who had dealt 
us so foul a blow, should first be called to account. 
And an account such as that could only be settled, 
and settled finally, in one way. 

That thought became an obsession with me. It 
grew and it grew till it possessed me wholly, body 
and soul. 

He had done more than spill blood. He had 
spilled to the void a lovely human soul. No punish- 
ment of man could adequately reach him. But such 
as in me lay should be meted to him, though it cost 
me my own life — ay, and my own soul also. 

And I did not, as yet, even know for certain who 
the man was. It would be worse than useless tack- 
ling him till I knew. That would only lay me open 
to prosecution as a madman or a blackmailer and 
would accomplish nothing. For this strange anoma- 
lous world of ours condones the man’s offence, but 
flings his victim to the outer darkness. I, only, 
could bring him to account, and that I was deter- 
mined to do as soon as I knew. 

I rambled back into Switzerland. Solitary, 
among the Mighty White Ones of the earth, I had 


60 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


some kind of hope that my wound might heal some- 
what, though the determination to avenge it never 
slackened for one instant. 

Up on the sunny heights above the Lake of Thun, 
sunny even when the snows lay deep and all com- 
munication with the lower world was cut off for 
days at a time, I spent a whole year — at Sigriswil 
and Beatenberg. And in both I was regarded as a 
harmless lunatic, who spent all his time rambling 
in the most out-of-the-way places, but paid his way 
and so was to be tolerated. 

Then I turned homewards and got as far as the 
Picard coast, and cast anchor again amid the lonely 
dunes of Cap Gris-Nez, — with the bluff white cliffs 
of England looming across the tumbling gray waters, 
— England, where, sooner or later, I should come 
across that other and accomplish in him the expia- 
tion of his crime, and then in myself my own. 

These various periods of quiet, simple living 
brought me back the bodily health and strength 
which the wearing trouble had sapped. But so 
much a part of my very soul had my intention to 
kill the man become, that the renewal of my body 
affected the determination of my mind not at all — 
unless in the way of strengthening it. 

The man who could do this thing was a blot on 
creation. It was given to me to remove that blot, — 
to cleanse creation of him, — to end his power for 
further harm in the world. 


4 . 


T HAD been back in London close on six months, 
mingling once more to some extent with my old 
friends in Fleet Street, and welcomed by them as 
something in the way of a change from the drab 
routine of life. 

They were puzzled of course by my sudden 
dropping out of things, and still more by my 
refusal to attempt any piecing of the broken 
threads. 

But why should I ? I had only one ambition left, 
and that had to do with the breaking of threads, 
not with the re-piecing of them. 

Johnstone, the man who had once, in the begin- 
ning of troubles lectured me on the subject of drugs, 
was my closest friend — as his action in trying to 
turn me from sins of which I was not guilty proved. 
He was greatly concerned about me. 

“ You had the ball at your feet, my boy,” he 
urged. “ And it^s not too late to try another kick. 
You seem fit and well again. Jump in and do your 
work in the world. I don’t know what you’ve been 
up to all this time, but it seems to have done you 
no great harm. I’m quite ready to believe it wasn’t 
61 


62 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


drugs, though I’m bound to say it looked uncom- 
monly like it, yon time. . . . Down there they’re 
saying it’s some woman you’ve gone crazy for. 
Take the advice of an old man, my son,” — he was 
perhaps a year older than myself, — ‘‘ and let up 
on it. The baggages are not worth wasting one’s 
life over. It’s the only life you’ll have, remember, 
and we’ll all be a long time dead,” and I thanked 
him for his good intentions. 

I made casual enquiries concerning the man 
whose portrait Lucille had pointed out to me, but 
could learn nothing definite. In public esteem he 
stood as high as ever. Any contrary whispers never 
got beyond smoking-room doors. 

I waited. There was nothing else I could do. 

Then at last the long suspense came to a sudden 
end. A telegram came to me at the Press Club one 
afternoon, and an hour later I was on my way to 
Paris. 

It was from Honor, and said briefly : “ Come to 
me,” — and gave an address in the Rue St. Honore. 

I arrived at the Gare du Nord at eleven o’clock 
and drove at once to the Rue St. Honore. 

It was one of the great old houses, with a huge 
porte-cochere and a massive nail-studded door with 
a smaller door in the right-hand valve. 

I rang the bell, the small door opened, and I stood 
in the high vaulted tunnel- way leading to the court- 
yard behind. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 63 

“ Your name, monsieur ? ” asked a voice from 
the window of the concierge’s lodge. 

I gave my name. 

“ Monsieur is expected.” 

He clanged a bell upstairs, and a footman in 
quietly rich livery appeared in the wide stairway 
on the right and signed to me to follow him. 

Up two flights of the wide polished steps, and I 
was shown into an ante-room, small but richly 
furnished. 

And immediately there came to me there a tall 
very fine-looking man, with grizzled hair and 
moustache, and a face full of deepest distress. 

“ You are Monsieur Daunt ? ” 

I bowed, wondering much what it all meant. 

He took both my hands in his and with a 
shake in his voice said, “ She is dying, — your sister. 
We are thankful you are in time. Monsieur Daunt. 
Come at once. I will explain things afterwards,” 
and he led me into another room — a handsomely- 
furnished bedroom. 

And there, propped among an abundance of the 
softest of pillows, lay my dear Honor — very near to 
death, as I saw at a glance. 

To my surprise a priest stood by the bedside, an 
aged man of very gentle and benevolent aspect, 
and a nun or nursing sister in a great white coiffe, 
and from one or other of them there emanated a 
faint sweet smell of incense. 


64 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


Death was hovering very near. There is no 
mistaking The Presence. I was only just in 
time. 

She was in full possession of her senses, and so 
amazingly little changed that, but for that dreadful 
oppressive silence, in which it seemed to me that 
I could actually sense the soundless coming of the 
All-Powerful One, I should have deemed her ill 
indeed, but very far from dying. 

Her face was thinner, the great dark-blue eyes 
seemed unnaturally large in the misty hollows of 
her cheeks. They glowed at sight of me with a 
sudden radiance — as stars shine up out of a fern- 
fringed pool when the cloud that has hid them passes 
away. The hand I gently kissed, as I sank on my 
knees by the bed, was very beautiful still. She had 
always been proud of her hands. And she smiled 
wanly down at me. 

“ Oh — my dear ! my dear ! ” I sobbed, for it 
was pitiful beyond the telling to see her going so, — 
like a fair white lily broken by the switch of a care- 
less stick. 

‘‘ I am going, dear. And quite happy now. 
Forgiven, I think. . . . And you ? ” 

“ Don't go. Honor ! Oh, my dear, don’t go ! 
You are dearer to me than ever. You must not 
go ! ” 

“ Too late, dear ! — Too late ! ” she murmured 
very sadly. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


65 


And then, with a rush that upset my reasonable 
judgment and carried me beyond the bounds, the 
tragedy of her broken life swept down upon me 
. . . the thought of that other who was the cause 
of it all, who had brought her to this, boiled up in 
me, and boiled over. 

I strained towards her and jerked hoarsely, — in 
a whisper, but she heard, — “ Who was it, Honor ? 
. . . Tell me, dear, before you go ... ! ” — and 
then, in a volcanic eruption of most desperate fury 
lest this only possible chance of learning the truth 

should pass, I asked, “ Was it ? ” and named 

the man whose portrait had been pointed out to me 
by Lucille. 

For one brief instant I saw the startled horror in 
her eyes — mixed, — oh, amazing sight ! — with a 
tenderness that had not been there even for me. 

“ No ! she cried, with sudden accession of vigour. 
“ Oh — no ! . . . No ! . . .” and then she fell back 
dead, and I knew from what I had seen in her eyes 
that that was the man. 

“ Pax ! — pax Dei vobiscum ! ” murmured the old 
priest gently, and with a catch in his voice, as he 
raised his trembling old hands reverently over her. 
And then — “ Requiescat in pace ! 

There was a choking sob at my side, and the tall 
fine man with the grizzled hair touched my arm and 
said : 

‘‘ Come ! ” 


F 


66 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

I bent and kissed the beautiful face that had been 
dearer to me than any face in the world since I was 
ten, — kissed it for the last time, with sobs in my 
chest that came near rending it, and then I followed 
him out of the room. 

He took me to an adjoining room, panelled to the 
ceiling with dark wood and like all the rest of the 
great house most beautifully furnished. That know- 
ledge I came to later. For the moment all I noticed 
was a red fire on a low hearth and a table with 
eatables and silver drawn up close to it. 

The grizzled man sat himself heavily down in a 
chair and signed to me to sit also. He rested his 
elbows on the carved arms of the chair and dropped 
his face into his hands, and so remained for several 
minutes while I examined what I could see of him 
with a very natural curiosity. 

He was a man of fifty or fifty-five, I judged, — of 
very fine carriage and manner, an aristocrat to the 
finger-tips without a doubt. 

He looked up at last and wearily across at me. 

“ You will pardon me. Monsieur Daunt ! But you 
will understand. For you also loved her.’^ 

“ She has been the one dear thing in the world to 
me since I was ten years old — when she was born.” 

“ And that is five-and-twenty years ago to-day.” 

I stared at him. “ It is true. I had forgotten it 
was her birthday. My poor Honor ! . . .” and we 
fell silent over the bitter sadness of it all. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


67 


“ Now will you please explain how ” I asked 

at last, for before going further, or accepting any 
hospitality from him, I must know. 

‘‘ Yes, I will tell you. Monsieur Daunt. My loss 
in her is greater almost than yours. You loved her 
as a sister. I loved her with the love of a man who 
would at any moment have given everything he 
had, and his very life, for her. . . . And she would 
not let me. ... It is over twelve months since we 
met,” — perhaps he noticed the pinch in my brows 
at the word, for he leaned across and placed his 
firm white hand on my knee, and said deeply : 
“ Do not mistake. There was never an ill thought 
between us. I loved her and honoured her as never 
any other woman. . . . She was living very quietly 
at Antibes, where I was slowly convalescing after 
an illness. Innocent accident made us acquainted 
and our friendship ripened. She was suffering even 
then from this that has taken her from us. But she 
was brave ! . . . Mon Dieu ! — The patient bravery 
of her ! She was wounded to the death and showed 
no sign. . . .” 

‘‘ What was it ? ” I jerked gruffly. 

“ A broken heart, monsieur ! . . . Simply that, 
— a broken heart ! . . . Such a brave pure heart 
to be despoiled in such a way ! She would never tell 
me who, though she bravely told me all else. And 
the fault was not hers, monsieur, — only the sorrow 
and the suffering. She trusted him implicitly 


68 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


because she loved him wholly. And — and that is 
the marvel — she loved him still — right to the end, 
and no other could ever take his place in the brave 
big heart. The wonder of it ! Can a man love like 
that ? I would have doubted — until I came to love 
her myself. For her I would willingly have given 
my life at any moment. I have wealth. I have 
honours, — a name linked with my country’s history. 

I offered her all if she would wed me. But, no 

She came to care for me as she had never cared for 
any save one other man. But marry me she would 
not — ^for my own sake, she said, and because that 
other man still owned her heart’s best love. The 
marvel of it ! He ought to have been a great and 
a good man ” 

“ You do not know then ” 

“ She never would tell me. Everything else, — 
she kept back nothing from me. But his name — no ! 
I think she feared if I learned it I would kill him.” 

“ That is what I am going to do,” I said. 

He started up and stood facing me with eager 
outstretched hands. 

“ You know him ? And he still lives ? Dieu-de- 
Dieu-de-Dieu ! ” 

“ Only now I learned it — just as she was going. 
I asked her. I named a name, and with her last 
breath she denied it. But, monsieur, there was that 
in her eyes which told me the truth in spite of her. 
She died with the beautiful lie on her lips.” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


69 


‘‘ It was like her ! Oh, but it was like her ! . . . 
And now, monsieur ” and he eyed me hungrily. 

“ As I told you, I am going to kill him for the 
wrong that he did her.” 

He eyed me thoughtfully, and then said, “ In 
your country that means your own life too. Here — 
no ! — But we regard these matters differently.” 

‘‘ My life is of small account. For years — ever 
since I lost her — it has waited only for this. I shall 
give it willingly.” 

We sat into the morning and he told me much of 
his great white friendship with Honor. If she could 
have put out of her heart the love for that other 
who had treated her so ill, she could have had every- 
thing the heart of woman as a rule desires. She 
could, in short, have been a duchesse, and wife of 
a very noble gentleman, the last of the main line 
of one of the oldest and wealthiest families of France. 
But for love of that other — in spite of all — she put it 
all aside and would not. And the grievous sorrow of 
this man before me testified to his equal love for her. 

It is a contrary world at times and I sorrowed 
with him. 

I stayed with him for the funeral. He buried her 
in that strange vast city of the dead, P^re Lachaise, 
— quietly, as she would have wished, and in a quiet 
corner away from the crowd, and told me gloomily 
of the exquisite little chapel he designed to raise 
over her. 


70 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


‘‘ She would let me do so little for her while she 
lived,” he said quietly. ‘‘ Now I can do as I will.” 

And after thinking over that for a time, I asked, 
‘‘ Is it herself you would please or yourself, monsieur 
le Due ? ” 

“ Ah — if I could only please her ! — myself is 
nothing.” 

“ Then, if you will permit me, spend all that 
money rather in some good service to the living — 
perhaps to those who suffer wrongs and sorrows like 
hers. That will give her the greater joy.” 

“ You think she would know ? ” 

“ Without a doubt.” 

“ Then ...” after a long and thoughtful silence, 
— “ What of yourself ? Will that which you con- 
template please her ? ” 

“ It will not. I have considered all that. I forfeit 
the right no doubt ever to meet her pure soul again. 
But ... a man like that must be removed — even 
at such a price — for this is not the only case. He 
is beyond the pale. It must be stopped.” 

“You will not tell me his name ? ” 

“ Better not. You will know.” 

“ But in case you fail ? ” 

“ I shall not fail.” 

The day after the funeral he handed me certain 
papers of Honor’s in a large sealed envelope, and 
I bade him farewell and returned to London. 


5. 


T SET about my preparations without delay. 

^ The papers Honor had left for me consisted of 
her will and details of her small estate. It was 
intact, as she had received it at her own request 
on her twenty-first birthday. She had simply 
drawn the interest and the capital was untouched. 
She left everything to me, and I had a new will 
drawn up by my good friend Denver — my solicitor, 
— and better solicitor and better friend no man ever 
had — leaving it all, in case of anything happening 
to me, to some very distant relatives whom I had 
never even seen. 

Then I bought a revolver and made myself as 
familiar with it as time permitted. 

For all the old craving for settlement with that 
other man was upon me in ten times its former 
force. And the days that passed without bringing 
us face to face were lost days of unutterable 
longing. 

I need not go deeply into this part of my story. 
The bare facts the papers had. All that lay behind 
was between myself and God. 

They declined my plea of ‘ Guilty ’ at the trial, 
71 


72 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


in the hope of arriving at some understanding of 
what was to most a great mystery. But, thank 
God, they learned nothing, and Honor’s name was 
never even mentioned. 

I learned the times he was generally to be found 
at home. Late one night I went to his house, 
obtained audience with him, under pretext of an 
urgent private message from the War Office, and 
confronted him with that one ill-deed of his, which 
had spoiled the light of the sun for me. 

He was in his library writing by a shaded lamp. 
He looked up as I was shown in and the man with- 
drew. 

“ Well ? ” he asked. “ What is it ? ” 

“ I am Noel Daunt,” I said simply. 

“ Daunt ? ” — he cast back in his mind for the 
context, and swung round his chair to face me. 

“You stole my sister Honor,” — and he straight- 
ened up in his chair and looked keenly at me. 

He must have seen in my eyes what was coming. 
But he did not flinch. He simply sat and looked at 
me, and then put one elbow on the arm of his chair 
and shaded his eyes with his hand, — thinking hard, 
— of Honor may be. 

Yes, he was a very fine-looking man, verging on 
forty, I should say, with a face like one of the 
Roman emperors, — I could not say which, — but it 
was very finely modelled, with strong well-cut 
features and a wide frank brow. His hah’ was 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


73 


frosting about the ears. It gave him added dis- 
tinction. Even at that terrible moment, when it 
only needed a movement to hurl him before the 
judgment-seat with all his sins upon him, — when 
our two lives were on the knife-edge of Fate and 
one little second would end it all, — I remember 
wondering how such perfection of manly beauty 
came to be so incredibly wedded with such dire lack 
of the moral sense. 

And he was a brave man. He knew what was 
coming and he made no effort to escape. He prob- 
ably knew it would be futile. 

A brass disc with a movable finger lay on the table 
alongside him, for the summoning of this one or the 
other of his household. He never offered to touch 
it. It would have been useless, of course, in any 
case, and he knew it. 

“ You stole her,'’ I said again. “ She died a week 
ago. And now, — you pay ! ” and I shot him down 
as I would have shot a dangerous dog. 

I made no attempt to escape. Why should I ? 
All I wanted now was the end of the whole matter, 
and final peace or whatever might follow. 

And I felt no slightest compunction even when he 
pitched forward out of his chair and lay still on the 
rug at my feet. Compunction did, indeed, presently 
come upon me, but that was only when I learned to 
my bitter disappointment that the man was not 
dead. But that came later. 


74 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


All that followed — for months, until I came fully 
to myself again in Dartmoor Prison — is vague and 
shadowy in my remembrance. 

And that, I suppose, was natural enough. For 
years all the evil forces within me had been living 
and waiting for this culminating moment, and 
straining towards it like hell-hounds in the leash. 

When it came, and passed, the terrible tension 
relaxed in a moment and left me flaccid and un- 
strung. There was only one other thing before me, — 
the short final scene of all, and I had schooled myself 
to view it with equanimity. The actual bodily 
suffering was small, I understood, the mental 
torture great. But this last I would endure, with 
such fortitude as I could summon, as a necessary 
part of my expiation. 

Oh, if I could have brought myself to end it all 
there and then ! To fall, with a bullet through the 
brain, across his body would indeed have made a 
clean and dramatically complete end, and to me 
infinitely the easier end. 

But — my perverted mind drew a line of strictest 
demarcation between these two things. Self- 
slaughter would be murder pure and simple, without 
any possible justification. It had in it, besides, 
something of cowardice and weak shirking of conse- 
quences. Whereas the killing of this man was simply 
the execution of a righteous judgment, — the barring 
from further mischief of one who had wrought much 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


75 


ill in the world, — the possible salvation of many who 
might otherwise come under his malign influence. 

That, at all events, was how the matter presented 
itself to me. I am not justifying anything I have 
done. I am simply endeavouring to make the whole 
thing plain from my then point of view. 

(And, as I look back now, and see things from the 
higher standpoint of these later influences, I cannot 
be too thankful for the bungling job I made of him, 
and for the feeling which restrained me from taking 
my own life. Had I ended the matter in that 
fashion, what would I not have missed ? My bun- 
gling and my aversion to suicide saved alive two 
souls and secured the happiness of the best of 
women.) 

Matters took, I suppose, their usual course. I 
have no recollection of any special indignities or 
bodily sufferings . Indeed I am inclined to think 
that I was treated with extreme consideration. 

And pondering, later on, upon all that befell me 
during this whole time of examinations, remands, 
and final trial, I incline to the belief that those in 
whose hands I was, gauged, more fully than the 
outside public possibly could, probable reasons for 
my apparently mad and unwarrantable deed. 

For myself, I said not one word. The first 
startled constable’s official warning as to ill-timed 
babbling on my part and its possible consequences 
was quite unnecessary. Least said, soonest mended. 


76 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


But this was beyond mending and I had nothing 
whatever to say about it. 

Only to the Superintendent at the police-station, 
who gravely took down the charge and eyed me 
keenly, I said, “ It’s all right. I did it,” and he held 
up a peremptory hand to prevent my saying more. 

But I wanted the matter finished and done with, 
and all the necessary, I suppose, but to me excessively 
wearisome ofiicial business, was galling and hateful. 
The thing was done. AU I desired now was to get 
it and myself ended and put out of sight for ever. 

That best of friends, Henry Denver, — stars to his 
crown when his time comes, for every good thought 
I have had of him ! — came to me the moment his 
appalled eyes lit upon the news in the papers. 

It was from him that I learned that, even as an 
executioner of righteous justice, I had failed, — that 
the man was not dead, though his life hung in the 
balance and must do for many days. 

No worse news could I have had, and it plunged 
me into profoundest gloom. One bullet had 
ploughed through the top of his head. The other 
had struck an inch or more above his heart instead 
of through it. The revolver had thrown high, or 
my hand had jerked slightly upwards under the 
nervous strain of the moment. 

Beyond expressing my regret at my failure I 
declined to give any explanations even to Denver. 

He argued, he pleaded. My life, or at all events 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


77 


— since the matter had turned out so untowardly — 
my liberty for anything between five and fifteen 
years was at stake. Explanations, reasons, might 
minimise the term. But explanations involved the 
dragging in of my dear Honor’s name and reputa- 
tion, and I refused. 

He did everything that man, lawyer, and best of 
friends could do. All I asked of him was that if he 
could do anything whatever to make a speedy end 
of the matter he would do it, — and all my financial 
affairs I placed unreservedly in his hands. 

There followed many weeks of what seemed to 
me official foolery ; necessary no doubt for the safe- 
guarding of the public weal and the rights of the 
individual. But for me all intolerably wearisome 
and inconsequential. 

But, all through, I have no single complaint to 
make — except of the law’s delays. 

Came at long last the day of trial at the Old 
Bailey, and I welcomed it as another might welcome 
freedom. 

But it is in my mind no more than a blur, like a 
badly-made cinematograph film, full of faults and 
rents, and raced through at express speed, though, 
indeed, it seemed endless. 

I remember the spiked rails of the dock, and the 
sympathetic kindness of the bluff official who shared 
it with me, — and the murmurous crowd behind, — 
and various counsel in wigs and gowns, — but 


78 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


chiefly the judge who was to decide the length of my 
imprisonment. 

He was a man of distinguished appearance and 
severe aspect. I had heard him try and sentence 
many a criminal, with no slightest expectation of 
ever having to submit to the same at his hands. 

But, long sentence or short, it mattered little to 
me. For during these wretched weeks of waiting 
one sole resolve had been hardening in me, and that 
was that, if that other man still lived when I was free 
again, I would complete my work, and this time 
make sure beyond the possibility of doubt. 

To make the shortest possible of the present 
matter, — which was only an annoying interlude in 
life’s rough programme — I had wished to plead 
‘ Guilty ’ and so make a quick end. 

But they would not have it so, and Denver told 
me afterwards they had hoped, by trying the case 
out, to arrive at reasons and possibly extenuating 
circumstances. 

They arrived at neither, and when at last the 
jury had given their inevitable verdict of attempted 
murder, his lordship, before passing sentence, bade 
me stand up and answer him one question. 

I wondered much what it could be, but faced him 
unflinchingly and I hope not brazenly. 

He raked me through and through with an eye 
which had set many a criminal heart kicking, and 
I gazed quietly back at him. 


MY LADY OP THE MOOR 


79 


I wondered suddenly if he knew the secret 
reputation attributed by the whispers of the smoking- 
room to the man I had shot. And the silence in the 
crowded court was profound as all waited for what 
he would say. 

“ Had you at any time in your life come into 
personal contact with your victim before you made 
this attempt on him ? ” 

“ Never, my lord ! ’’ and as I bowed to him our 
eyes met and held, and I knew that he knew. 

He proceeded to give me a short homily on the 
enormity of my deed, and the impossibility of the 
law exacting anything but heavy penalty for it. 

My hope of ultimately completing my work 
receded into a very remote background. The man 
would probably be dead before I came out. 

“ Seven years’ penal servitude.” 

My heart leaped gratefully. It might have been 
very much more. 

And when Denver saw me for a few minutes 
down below, he said : “ I’m glad for your sake. 
Daunt. But I don’t understand it. He’s a pretty 
hard man, as a rule. However — you get off fairly 
lightly. Five years is the minimum, and it might 
have run to ten or even more. I wonder what it 
was turned him in your favour.” 

But I knew, — or thought I did. And I have, in 
pondering the matter since, felt certain that his 
lordship saw that there was that behind which could 


80 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


not be disclosed, — ^that he probably knew or guessed 
what the nature of it might be, — and that possibly 
he dealt lightly with me in view of the fact that he 
believed my persistent silence was maintained for 
the purpose of shielding some other person. 

One other thing Denver said in our brief interview. 
I had done my utmost throughout that weary time 
in court — when they must spend hour after hour in 
proving to their own completest satisfaction that 
I really had done that which I had never had any 
wish to deny having done — to preserve an abso- 
lutely impassive face. Denver’s remark showed me 
that I had not succeeded as I had hoped. 

He eyed me searchingly as we sat in the bare 
prison room, and asked, “ Is this the end of it. 
Daunt ? ” 

“ The end ? ” I said wearily. ‘‘ What do you 
mean ? ” 

“ Can’t you be satisfied, and let it all end here ? 
You have all along refused to enlighten me as to 
your reasons for doing it, and I’m not going to press 
you now. But, my dear fellow, for God’s sake and 
your own, make an end of it now. I’ll tell you why 
I say this. After the sentence, just as you turned 
to go, Saville, your counsel, — he’d been watching 
you keenly, and he rather prides himseK on his skill 
in reading faces, — well, he turned to me and said, 
‘ When does our friend come out again with luck, 
Denver ? ’ . . . ‘ In five years and three months if 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


81 


he loses none of his time.’ . . . ‘ Well, in five years 
and six months you’ll have him on your hands 
again, unless I’m very much mistaken. He means 
to finish the job properly as soon as he gets the 
chance,’ he said. And if any such idea is in your 
mind, my dear fellow, I do conjure you to fight 
against it. It can only poison all your time, and 
it’s bad enough at best. Take my advice, — put it 
all behind you and make a clean new sheet when 
the time comes.” 

I thanked him, but made no promise, and we 
shook hands and parted. 

The advice, I knew, was good. But such a promise 
was not possible to me. For it was solely the inten- 
tion to complete my work at the first possible 
moment that had nerved me so far to quiet en- 
durance, and it would, I knew, continue to do so 
right to the end. 

I was not a little upset to think that anyone — 
even one who prided himself on his skill in reading 
faces — should have fathomed my resolve so clearly. 
I could only hope that others were, and would be, 
more obtuse. 


G 


6 . 


TN both my prisons, and during the whole of my 
time, I was, I believe, looked upon as a model 
prisoner. 

Such attainment is not difficult, if within you 
there is that which clamours for one thing only as 
necessary to its satisfaction ; and that, — freedom 
again at the first possible moment. And, since such 
early release can only be earned by the meticulous 
observance of every prison rule, he who would 
shorten his term studies those rules with care and 
observes them with most scrupulous exactness. 

Everything was loathsome to me, — from the first 
enforced stripping for the convict bath and coarse 
bodily examination at Wormwood Scrubs, to the 
clanging behind me of the infernal gates at Prince- 
town. Once duly settled there, I dropped into a 
mechanical routine of duties which to some extent 
acted as anodyne to my tortured soul. 

Wormwood Scrubs is only the clearing-house for 
the great penal establishments elsewhere. While 
there you feel yourself only a bird-of-passage and 
never settle down. It is the most trying portion 
of the whole period of imprisonment. 

82 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


83 


There one serves one’s term of solitary confine- 
ment, working all day in one’s cell and never leav- 
ing it except for exercise and chapel. That terrible 
unbroken silence, in which one sits alone with the 
bitterness of the past and the blankness of the 
future and one’s torturing thoughts, breaks many 
a man to pieces. 

Then there are the discomforts and degradation 
of, and the inevitable bodily and mental revolt 
against, the coarse, ill-fitting clothing, the constant 
supervision, the menial services, the utter abnega- 
tion of self, and the feeling that one is no longer a 
man but a number, to be ordered and herded like 
a beast of the field, without even the possibility 
of voicing one’s feelings which the beasts are 
allowed. 

It was all horrible to me, but worst of all was that 
feeling of the lost self and the knowledge that it was 
nevermore to be recovered. 

But I had laid my course for freedom at the 
earliest moment, and I held to it with inflexible 
determination. 

And then — I had that within me which, while it 
darkened and twisted my soul, kept me to the 
straight and strait path of prison rectitude, — ^that 
smouldering volcano of hate and fell intent which 
I was determined nothing should quench. The fire 
was damped down for the time being by the neces- 
sity of observing the prison rules, but it glowed 


84 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


hotter than ever below the placid surface. I strung 
myself to preserve an absolute imperturbability so 
that the time should be shortened by every second 
that the law allowed, but at times the cost and strain 
were heavy on me. 

I have not one single word of complaint to make 
of my treatment in Dartmoor Prison. The Governor 
and his Deputy were in my time both army men and 
were eminently gentlemen. Beyond my first inter- 
view with them on arrival, I had practically nothing 
to do with either of them. The warders were strict, 
— and God knows it was necessary with some of us, — 
but not unduly so where the intention towards 
obedience was manifest. 

There were many case-hardened sinners among 
us, and these were not by any means the worst 
behaved. Through long experience they knew the 
prison rules to the last letter, and just what they 
could and could not do without danger to their 
mounting tale of good-conduct marks. Like myself, 
they wanted freedom at the first possible moment 
and behaved accordingly. 

To the chaplain I fear I was an unsolvable puzzle ; 
just as I was later on, on the lower bodily plane, to 
the medical officer. I listened attentively to all he 
had to say, lest refusal of his ministry should tell 
against me in the matter of marks, but my soul was 
cased in triple steel against his every effort. 

He was a good fellow and did his utmost to pierce 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 85 

my crust. Had he succeeded he would have been 
mightily astonished at what he found below. 

So good a fellow was he, indeed, that at times I 
had a hard fight to get rid of the good he willed me 
and strove his best to instil into me. But in that 
I always succeeded, for to have failed would have 
been like losing my backbone. It would have left 
me helpless and nerveless and without a purpose 
in life. 

Through the chaplain, after his first few talks 
with me, in which he learned some little about my 
previous life — very little, but enough for his imme- 
diate purpose — I was able to get practically all the 
books I wanted from the library, which was a great 
boon. 

Still better, when a vacancy presently occurred 
among the librarian’s assistants, through expiry of 
sentence, he got me appointed to the post and I 
retained it till I left. And for exercise I was given 
the care of one of the little gardens near the stone - 
breaking sheds, and I tended it to the very best of 
my powers and enjoyed doing it. 

My work all round was light and eminently 
congenial, but, greatest gain of all, it removed me 
from that close association with my fellow-criminals 
which had been one of the hardest things of all to 
bear. 

We were all criminals in the eyes of the law. 
But even the warders showed plainly that they could 


86 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


perceive degrees in our criminality, not according 
to what we had done, but according to what we now 
were. And some among us were simply loathsome 
brutes, degraded and contaminating, filthy bundles 
of vile passions and viler thoughts, as morally 
infectious as a fever patient is bodily. 

(My Dear Lady, I know, holds that every soul 
of them is redeemable. It may be so. I will hope 
it is so. I suppose it must be so, since God is love, 
and I have learned through her something of the 
magnificence of its meaning. But if she had heard 
some of them, as at times I was forced to do, her 
own pure and hopeful soul would have been sorely 
shocked and troubled, though I know it would have 
gone on hoping and praying for us all as before.) 

My duties as assistant to the librarian, who was, 
of course, a warder in uniform, were — to keep the 
books clean and in good condition, — to repair 
damaged copies, — and to change the prisoners* 
books periodically. For this latter purpose there 
were provided big basket-trolleys on wheels, which 
we loaded up in the library and then made the 
rounds of the cells under strict supervision of a 
warder. 

Materially then the chaplain was of great service 
to me, but spiritually not at all, because I would not. 
He did his best, but could make no headway against 
that triple armour of evil intention in which I had 
encased myself. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


87 


My choice was made. My soul was steeled in- 
flexibly against any gracious outside influence. I 
lived from day to day, nay, from minute to minute, 
solely with the other end in view. And it was only 
that grim hope of completing my work in time that 
kept me up and enabled me to bear with equanimity 
the discomforts of prison-life. 

All the ever-galling little incidentals to my 
position, — the perpetual restrictions, — the ubiqui- 
tous ‘ Thou shalt nots,’ — ^the trying supervision of 
the eyelet-hole in my cell door, — the knowledge that 
every movement was under observation, — the per- 
petual personal searchings, — ‘ rubbing-down ’ was 
the term, — to see that we took no contraband to our 
cells, — the regular minute searching of our cells in 
our absence, — everything emphasised the forfeiture 
for the time being of our every right to call ourselves 
any longer men ; — all these left me outwardly 
unruffled. 

But many a night I have purposely lain awake 
breathing long deep breaths of the fresh moor air 
under the sliding panel of the window, for the mere 
joy of doing something of my own free will with none 
to say me nay. It was about the only thing one 
could do of one’s own intention. Every other act 
in our lives was subject to regulations. 

Of a truth I was bound in misery and iron, — the 
phrase came to me in the course of my work, — 
misery of the mind and flesh, iron in my soul. 


88 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


In a way I was content. Things might have been 
very much worse with me. My work was congenial. 
My food sufficed. I slept soundly of a night. 

But my life was poisoned at the springs, for my 
Credo was hate. All that I suffered became to me 
but an aggravation of that man’s offence. Every 
single item of it I put down to his account. I 
carried it forward day by day, swelling the total 
of his debt against the coming day of settlement, 
and fed my hatred of him by constant thought of 
it. The very fact of his being still alive was a 
tremendous item against him. If he had died, as 
he ought to have done, my sufferings would have 
been over. 

I was perfectly alive to the evil state I was in. 
I nourished the ill thing within me by constant 
brooding over Honor’s broken life and the full and 
final expiation I would exact for it. 

My purpose never swerved. My only fear was 
the fear of death, and that was ever with me ; — the 
fear lest that other man should die before I was 
released, — the fear that I might die before I could 
kill him. 

And at times the dread of either of these things 
coming to pass amounted to something like dementia. 
The man might be dead even now, and my chance 
gone. I should never hear of it. We knew nothing 
of what was going on in the outside world, — that 
was another of the hardships of prison-life. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


89 


The chill horror of the thought reduced me at 
times to a state of mental and physical collapse 
which puzzled the doctor exceedingly. At such 
times I was entirely subnormal, and life seemed 
slowly ebbing away without any ascertainable 
reason. 

The doctor had a keen eye for malingerers and 
was at first inclined to look askance at my condition, 
seeing that he could make nothing of it. But as I 
made no complaint, asked for no favours, and re- 
sented the idea of going into hospital — lest it should 
lose me my position, — he came round and did his 
very best for me. He did everything in fact that a 
healer of the body could do for one whose soul was 
sick, and finally insisted on shelving me for a time. 
Which, however, would only have aggravated my 
condition if the librarian, who did not often get the 
services of so willing an assistant or one so well up 
in books, had not promised to keep my place open 
for me. 

The two weeks I spent in hospital were the 
pleasantest experience I had in Dartmoor Jail. 
The full rest and the better feeding toned up my 
body somewhat and my spirits recovered themselves 
also. 

I had a letter from my friend Denver as often 
as the rules permitted — in my first year, one every 
three months ; — in the second year, one every two 
months ; and in the third, one every month. He 


90 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


never once missed and I was grateful to him. They 
were the only letters I received all the time I was 
there. 

The good fellow even offered to come down and 
see me. But I preferred not. It was bad enough 
to feel like a convict in the hideous convict dress, 
without one’s friends seeing one in it. 

And I knew that his object in desiring to come 
was to learn for himself what frame of mind I was 
in, — and whether I was still harbouring vengeance 
against that doer of ill whose death at my hand was 
the sole reason for my living. 

Denver could of course have solved all my doubts 
as to the man being still alive, but I did not dare 
to ask him. 

One question I debated constantly in my mind 
and at absurd length. And that was this, — sup- 
posing I came out alive, and that other still lived, 
what means should I use next time to make a sure 
job of it and a certain end of him ? 

The revolver had failed me. Should I try the 
knife ? The days and nights I spent turning this 
important matter over in my mind ! And the enjoy- 
ment I savoured in the doing of it ! It seemed to 
bring the actual accomplishment of my purpose 
nearer. I turned it over and over. I hugged it to 
me. I revelled in it like a hog in its mire or a miser 
in his gold. 

The knife meant close quarters, and it might be 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


91 


difficult to arrive at close quarters with a man who 
would fathom my intention the moment he set eyes 
on my face. 

Then, in the bound volume of a magazine, I came 
upon an advertisement of the Browning automatic 
pistol which would deliver a very mitraille of shots 
without stopping, and that clinched the matter. 
My first purchase after my release would be a 
Browning automatic pistol. 

That quiet, orderly, and most amazingly clean 
cell of mine, — Cell 251, 8 Ward, No. 5 Prison — was 
for many months the nightly scene of most arduous 
and bitter confiict. 

The night-warder on his rounds, when he flicked 
open the spy-hole in the door, saw nothing but a 
convict sleeping quietly in his bed, and passed on, 
satisfied, to the next cell. But in the confined space 
of that bare, silent, white-washed cubicle, 9 feet in 
length, 7 in width, and 9 in height, there raged 
mighty battle, night after night, for months — ay, 
and for years, — the perpetual and universal conflict 
between good and ill to which all mankind is 
subject, of which his immortal soul is the objec 
and prize. 

I was perfectly cognisant of it ; indeed, so worked 
up was I at times that it seemed to me that I could 
catch with my straining ears the sweep and rustle 
of their wings as the black angels and the white 
wrestled and fought together in the dark above me. 


92 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


For, you must know, that from the very first day 
I set foot in Princetown I was aware of some strange 
influence about me that warred continually with 
that on which my heart was set. 

(My Dear Lady of the Moor says, and I have come 
to accept her word in all such matters, that man’s 
natural state is good, his natural trend upwards, 
and that evil and backsliding are fallings away. 
And that word ‘ backsliding ’ would seem to prove 
her right, for one cannot slip backwards unless one 
has been endeavouring to climb. She holds that 
sin is largely soul-sickness, just as disease is a lapse 
from normal health.) 

That very first day, as I trudged through the 
bare gray streets of Princetown to the grim front 
gate of the prison, I caught glimpses, between the 
cold little granite houses, of the great wide sweeps 
of the Moor beyond, and something within me 
answered to the call of it against my will. 

They recalled very vividly to my mind, with 
something of damnatory reproach at my present 
estate, a huge steel engraving of the ‘ Plains of 
Heaven,’ by one John Martin, which used to exercise 
my childish imagination as it hung on the wall of 
the dining-room of our home in Londonderry. 

It was not simply that I was well content to be away 
at last from the lugubrious atmosphere of Worm- 
wood Scrubbs, and within reach of the place that was 
to be my home for the next five years, — where I 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 93 

could settle down and fall into a mechanical routine 
which would help the time to pass. 

There was more in it than that. There was a 
graciousness and breadth and freedom about those 
swelling green ridges and rolling downs which called 
to the primal nature in a man and made for uplift, 
in spite of himself, and the degradation to which he 
might have brought himself, — and, as in my own 
case, deliberately designed himself. 

Whether my fellows in misfortune felt it at all in 
the same way I cannot say. I saw the grizzled faces 
and saddened eyes turned towards the glimpses 
between the houses, and there was an obvious 
restive restlessness among us all. It might be 
simply the fact that this was the end of the journey, 
and this the last walk among the ordinary habita- 
tions of men for many years to come. But I think 
it not unlikely that to many besides myself the great 
Moor made its appeal and tendered its message. 

Certain it is that, as I have said, I, in my perverse 
condition, found it necessary to fight constantly on 
behalf of the evil intention which was the very back- 
bone of my life, the sole reason for my living, and 
the fight grew harder as time went on. 

Always there was present with me — no matter 
how I stifled it and buried it deep under cairns of 
bitter remembrance, — the certainty that, just be- 
yond the forbiddal of the terrible stone walls, lay 
something better, — something gracious and inviting, 


94 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


if only I would cast aside my chosen evil and let 
my soul go forth to meet it. 

Winter was a trying time for all of us, though less 
so for myself than for most. Those who had to go 
out into the keen winds and penetrating damp 
suffered much. On misty days, of which there were 
many, the outdoor gangs were kept inside for safety. 
The only attempts at escape were made when sudden 
mists overtook them before they could be hurried 
home. The sudden opportunity proved too much 
even for common sense at times. And while I was 
there, one man, who had only three months left to 
serve out of a ten years’ term, found himself unable 
to resist the temptation and was shot while trying 
to bolt. 

Spring, with its swirling rains and sweeps of 
brilliant white sunshine, quickened the blood even 
within the walls of Princetown Jail. The call of 
the Moor was strong upon me, and the need to fight 
it tooth and nail became ever the greater. 

My cell faced due east, and of a morning, when 
the sun rose clear and unclouded, its stark whiteness 
would be flooded with silvery light, and the blank 
white door would be patterned on the inside with 
the black lines of the iron window-bars. And I 
would hump my back and my heart against it, for 
there was something of ironical taunt in the joyous- 
ness of the sunshine, while the black-barred door 
but emphasised the fact that I was a prisoner. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


96 


The sunset I could not see, of course. Never once 
during the whole of my five years there did I see the 
sun go down, and thereby missed more than I knew, 
for the sunsets on Dartmoor are wonders of uplifting 
glory beyond even that of the dawn. 

The prison, however, lies on the eastern slope of 
a long green hill — Hessary, as I learned later, — and 
the sun went down behind it. But when, as was 
often the case, the zenith and the eastern sky were 
full of clouds, these would at times be set richly 
aglow from the fires of the west, and would wax 
brighter and brighter till suddenly the colours would 
fade, and the clouds became like smoke, and the 
shadows crept out and claimed the Moor for the 
night. 

Summer and autumn dawns filled my cell with 
mellower gold, but still always fiung the print of the 
bars before my waking eyes, and I hardened my 
soul against them all, and hugged my fell intent 
tighter to my heart than ever. Evil was my god, 
and good I would have none of. 

But, all the same, as I now know, I was keenly 
conscious of the call of the Moor to better things. 

It was in my third year that the conflict waxed 
fiercer than ever. My settled intention to end that 
man on the first opportunity never weakened, but 
the importunate cry from without grew steadily 
upon me and refused to be denied, and between 
them I was sorely torn and tried. 


96 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


With the bitterness of death in my heart I yet 
found myself, morning after morning, standing on 
my wooden stool and gazing resentfully, with frown- 
ing face and pinched eyes, at the dark curtain of 
the eastern sky, — resentfully, and yet with an odd 
sense of expectation. 

It was against the rules to stand on the stool and 
look out of window. I risked marks — which meant 
the shortening of my term — by doing it. But 
morning after morning found me there, and I grew 
so wary that I could always tell when a warder was 
coming, and I was never once caught. 

And there I would stand watching, eagerly and 
against my will, for the ever-recurring miracle of the 
dawn, — the wonderful, gentle pulsing of the unborn 
day behind the veiling clouds, — the silent diffusion 
of sweet soft light, which thinned the veils and at 
last pierced them here and there with rosy tender 
fingers. Then came the herald-rays of greater 
strength shooting high up towards the single star 
that always remained as though to see the day 
properly in. 

The great spread of the Moor before me lay 
always in a soft dim twilight, — except when the 
mists were out, when it looked like a vast sleeping 
lake. 

The clouds up above would tinge with thin 
purple and begin to scatter and disappear ; the 
distant ridges loomed large, the Moor lost its vague 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


97 


immensity and began to show its natural features. 
And always I waited for the sudden uprising out of 
the lower darkness of one certain hill which lay 
exactly between me and the sun. 

It was a regular triangle in shape, with flanks that 
stretched wide over the Moor, and it was crowned 
with huge piles of flat gray granite slabs. When at 
last the curtain-clouds parted, and the rim of the 
sun came stealing up silently above the dark blue 
distant ridges, it always seemed to me as though it 
was this special hill he had come to look for, and 
they two seemed to look across at one another and 
gravely pass their morning greetings. 

The name of the hill I did not know and dared 
not ask. Convicts are not allowed the privilege of 
questioning their keepers, — least of all concerning 
the topography of their surroundings. 

But there was more to me in the coming of each 
new day than the wonderful sight of it. 

The majestic silence of the great transformation 
always had in it something of surprise for me. It 
has so still. Magnificent paeans of song would have 
been its rightful accompaniment. 

But no sooner had the sun actually risen than I 
came by degrees to be aware of the Voice of the 
Moor, and it seemed to call to me— to me personally, 
and in a way that wrought strangely in me in spite 
of myself. 

Looking and thinking back over it all, it is not 

H 


98 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


easy to explain what that call of the Moor was and 
how it affected me. 

The sound that came to my bodily ears was, 
I suppose, compounded of all the awaking-to-life 
sounds of the things that lived out there in freedom. 
There was the lowing of distant cattle, and the 
bleating of sheep, and the strident neighings and 
whinnyings of the innumerable wild ponies and their 
foals. There was the carolling of larks and the songs 
and twitterings of all the other birds. 

But there was more than all that. There was some- 
thing in, and through, and above it all that called 
to my very soul to put the night behind me and 
come out into the morning light. And morning after 
morning I fought it down with all the ill-intent 
that was in me. 

One day, in the winter, when I was repairing a 
Bible that had come to disjection through much 
usage, certain words on one of the leaves I was 
carefully pasting in caught my eye and compelled 
me to read, by their appropriateness to my con- 
dition. 

The eye of a soldier is caught at once by any stray 
word concerning military matters ; of a sailor, by 
any news from the sea ; of a banker, by anything 
on financial matters ; — and so, the quick eye of a 
convict-writer, accustomed to gather at a glance the 
meat and meaning of crowded paragraphs, could 
not fail to catch, on the pages he was carefully 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


99 


pasting on to the binding slips, certain words that 
came right home to him. 

— ‘‘ From the heaven did the Lord behold the earth ; 
to hear the groaning of the prisoner : to loose those 
that are appointed to death. . . 

I had not opened a Bible, except in the necessary 
course of my duties, for years. But now, as I 
pasted and inset the leaves, I glanced here and there 
about them. . . . “ For my days are consumed like 
smoke. . . . My heart is smitten and withered as 
grass. ... I have eaten ashes like bread. . . . My 
days are like a shadow that declineth. ... He will 
regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their 
prayer. . . 

My only prayer — and that never worded, but 
boiling hot in my heart — had been and was, that I 
and that other man might still be alive when my 
time was up. 

On a further page I came upon, — “ Such as sit in 
darkness and in the shadow of deaths bound in affliction 
and iron. ... He hath broken the gates of brass, and 
cut the bars of iron in sunder. . . — and then on 
still another page, — ‘‘ When he shall be judged, let 
him be condemned : and let his prayer become sin. 
Let his days be few ; let another take his office . . . 
because that he remembered not to shew mercy, but 
persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even 
slay the broken in heart. . . 

He had us all there, the wonderful old writer. 


100 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“ The broken in heart, slain by the evil man,’’ — 
Honor, my dear broken lily. . . . That evil man 
who had broken her, whose days were to be few. 
. . . I, the prisoner bound in affliction and iron, 
who was to be the instrument of righteous ven- 
geance. 

Now, of a morning, as I used to stand on my stool 
at my cell-window and stare expectantly at the 
eastern sky, waiting for the clouds to tremble apart 
and let in the new day, something of all this used 
to work within me, — ^the good and the evil. 

And in that voice of the Moor that came up to 
me, morning and night, I recognised — against my 
will, and fought it desperately, since my very life 
and being depended, as it seemed to me, on the 
maintenance of my resolution, — I recognised, I say, 
a call to lay all this aside, to put the evil past behind 
me and come out into the light. 

And I would not. 

Truly it seemed to me at times that the varied 
voices of the Moor blended into one passionate 
yearning cry, as of a soul in very agony of pleading, 
— ‘‘ O come ! come ! come ! Put aside thy sin ! 
Break the gates of brass, cut the bars of iron ! 
Shake off the shackles of the past and come out into 
the light ! ” 

And I would not. 

By night, and especially when the full moon rose 
exactly behind my triangular hill again, that 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


101 


importunate cry came louder than ever to my heart, 
though thinner in my ears. 

When, as often happened, the Moor itself and all 
the lower lands and valleys were swathed in mist, 
the sight was a marvellous one. For then there lay 
below me, as far as the eye could reach, right to 
the farthest limit of the black sky, nothing but a 
vast placid silver sea on which the moonlight played 
mysteriously, and — rising proudly out of the midst 
of it — the dark topmost point of that shapely hill 
of which I have spoken, more impressive than ever 
in its lonely grandeur. 

And along the face of the silver sea, that strange 
call to better things would come sweeping into my 
heart, with appeal and insistence so great that many 
a time I have only been able to resist them by 
flinging myself down on my pallet and wrapping 
the blankets tightly round my head. 

Every night and every morning I cursed that call 
of the Moor right roundly. But night and morning 
found me at the window again, watching and waiting 
for that which I knew would come and which I 
hated and feared. 


7 . 


'll TY seven years — reduced by the exceptional 
good conduct I had so severely imposed on 
myself to five years and three months — came to an 
end at last. 

How simply and easily those words are written ! 
But what days and nights — what hours and minutes 
and seconds of heart-breaking abjectness and soul- 
searching misery they represent, God alone knows. 

However, — at last it was ended. I was taken up 
to London, where I had been condemned, and there 
released on probation. That is to say that for one 
year and nine months — the time needed for the 
completion of my sentence, and the remission of 
which I had gained by good conduct — I had to 
report myself once every month on my ticket-of- 
leave to the police-station nearest to wherever I 
might at the time be living. 

But this meant not only a monthly misery and 
degradation, — a perpetual kissing of the rod and 
reminder of the broken shackles — but an insuperable 
bar to the recovery of my lost self, and the utter 
impossibility of shaking off the prison taint till 
those terrible one-and-twenty months should be 
completed. 


102 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


103 


In my own especial case, it may seem to you that 
this would make but little difference, since my sole 
aim in life was to complete my bungled work and 
make a final end of that other and myself. 

But my very first enquiries after my release had 
been as to his whereabouts, and they were easily 
answered. He was abroad — in Japan, it was hinted 
— on some unknown, but supposed to be very deli- 
cate and important, mission connected with the 
military side of the compact between the two nations, 
and it might be many months before he returned 
to England. 

Other rumours placed him in Russia, and still 
others in Egypt. 

It was obviously out of the question to range the 
whole world after even so well-known a personage. 
So I had had to make up my mind to await his 
return, trusting to the justice of providence that 
Death would not jump my righteous claim on 
him. 

My first call was on Denver, from whom I received 
both cheerful welcome back to life and a very 
acceptable account of his stewardship. By his 
skilful handling of my affairs during my imprison- 
ment my income had risen to close on £700 a year. 
Not many ticket-of-leave men could step from 
prison to such comparative independence. 

I also bought my Browning quick-firer ; and I 
had a pleasant meeting with Johnstone, whom I 


104 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


chanced upon in the street and received from him 
most unaffectedly cordial greeting. He insisted on 
our dining together at one of his pet places in 
Wardour Street, and afterwards we had a long and 
interesting talk. 

He was too truly a man and a friend to attempt 
any avoidance of the past. He said bluffly : “ Under- 
stand, Daunt, I for one have no unpleasant feeling 
towards you concerning what has happened, and I 
think you’d find it the same with us all, if you’d only 
come back among us. We all know there was some- 
thing behind which you would not allow to come out, 
and we honour you for it. Come in among us again 
and you’ll find yourself among friends.” 

I thanked him heartily for his good-feeling, but 
explained that I was first going abroad for a time. 
After that ... we would see. 

And three days later, having called at Scotland 
Yard and given proper notice of my intention of 
remaining out of England till my ticket-of-leave 
expired, I was once more in Paris. 

I enquired there as to that good man whose high 
love for Honor had been to me all through my 
blackest time like a silver thread in a sackcloth robe. 
But he was dead, had died not many months after 
her, and had ordered his body to be laid in the same 
grave with her. 

I went on at once into Switzerland, and then into 
Tyrol, and there I loitered about for eighteen 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


105 


months, carrying with me everj^where my heavy 
burden, and finding it still ever necessary to grip 
it to me like grim death and to fight strenuously 
lest it should slip away and leave me void and pur- 
poseless and without an aim in life. 

For to one who had lived for more than five 
hideous years bound in affliction and iron behind 
the lugubrious stone walls of Dartmoor Prison, the 
sight and proximity of the mighty white peaks 
soaring up into the heavenly blue held a call to 
better things that was almost irresistible, — a call 
that was akin to the call of the Moor, — akin to, but 
still not quite the same. Perhaps that was because 
the Moor, through long familiarity, had so wrought 
itself into my nature ; — and perhaps it was some- 
thing more. 

But the active evil will of a man can counteract 
all Nature’s passive calls to good. He may suffer 
in the conflict till his own very nature be warped and 
twisted out of all semblance to humanity and he 
become no more than a beast of prey dressed in 
the habit of a man. For the Devil is very strong. 
It needs more than any passive call to good to turn 
him from the evil on which his heart is set. 

I made no friendships; though, on account, no 
doubt, of my loneliness and obviously troubled 
mind, many were tendered me. 

My one resource during these trying months of 
enforced waiting was writing. That itch had always 


106 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


been in me, but during those long years of bondage 
it had had to be suppressed. And that perhaps 
made it the more virulent when the embargo was 
removed. 

While in prison it had of course been impossible 
for me to commit my thoughts to paper. It was, 
I suppose, not unnatural that they should endeavour 
to clothe themselves in the more rememberable 
form of verse. Many remarkable jingles I put 
together, laboriously enough and of little value. 
But it passed the time, and it kept my brain from 
rusting. 

So now, as the result no doubt of all this, and of 
the grinding my soul had undergone, nothing would 
satisfy me but verse, and that of the most lugubrious 
description. 

It came, however, hot and cold out of my heart, 
and, to my surprise, it seemed to get at other people’s 
hearts also, and appealed to them in a way that 
I had never anticipated. In a time given over to 
the frivolous things of life my gloomy verses attracted 
attention, possibly by sheer force of contrast. And 
the name of Ian Carril, under which I fathered them, 
was actually becoming known, at all events to a 
select few, and, from the letters I received, was held 
by them in some estimation. 

But, in view of what lay before me, I wished no 
friendships, and cared not at all for the making of 
casual acquaintance. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


107 


The nearest I came to even that slight touch with 
my fellows was with an old Romanist priest, whom 
I chanced upon in a pine wood above Davos, the 
day after I arrived there. 

From his flowing white robe and long chains of 
beads I knew of course that he was a member of the 
order of S. Dominic, and my upbringing had given 
me a deep-rooted prejudice against his faith and all 
its practices. And so, in the natural course of 
things, I should have passed him by with no more 
than the ordinary casual courtesy that obtains 
between foreigners in a foreign land. 

But there was something so arresting about this 
old gentleman that no one, I think, could have 
passed him like that when he obviously evinced a 
desire for a chat. 

He was sitting on a pile of newly-cut pine logs. 
The ground all about was strewn with the white 
flakes of their undoing, and the branches and cones 
which had afterwards been stripped from them. 
The air was full of the sweet, pungent smell of them 
— the scent which is like balm to troubled lungs. 
Far away below, glimmering between the red boles 
of the standing pines, the white buildings of Davos 
shone in the afternoon sun. 

He looked up at me as I entered the clearing, and 
his quiet penetrating gaze had in it nothing of 
undue curiosity, rather something of wistful en- 
treaty. 


108 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


It was an unusually beautiful old face, the soft 
fine texture of the skin enmeshed with tiny lines 
which spoke eloquently of life-long endurance, — 
possibly of bodily suffering, — certainly of other 
people’s sins. His mouth was sweetly firm, as though 
accustomed to the administration of gentle rebuke. 
And his eyes, deep-set under pent-house brows, 
were very bright and penetrating, and yet in some 
way unusually attractive and persuasive. He was 
small of stature, and spare and frail-looking. 

Constrained by these things, and by a gentle 
movement he made, as though to offer me room on 
his log, I sat down beside him without further 
invitation. And I remember clearly every word he 
said to me. 

“ You are but newly arrived, I think,” he said, 
in a gentle sympathetic voice. 

“ Yes, I only came yesterday.” 

“Ah. And may I express the hope that you are 
here of choice, not of necessity.” 

“ Purely of choice.” 

“ You are one of the fortunate ones. I have been 
here many months. It is not likely that I shall ever 
go away again. At eventide, however, there is light. 
And I am well content. I have had a busy life. 
Rest will be very welcome to me.” 

“ One must not give up hope. When that goes 
there is not much left to live for.” 

“ My highest hopes and wishes have long been 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


109 


over there,” he said, with a friendly little upward 
jerk of the head. ‘‘ It will be greatest joy to me to 
go. And you ? ” 

“ I have still work to do here.” 

“ Good work, I trust, my son. It is good to have 
good work to do, — nothing better.” 

I did not answer him for a time. Some strange 
sudden impulse took possession of me to confide 
in the benevolent wisdom of this saintly old 
man. 

I had nursed my devil in secret for so long that he 
might have grown distorted. It would be a relief — 
ay, untenable relief — to haul him out and see how 
he struck an unbiassed stranger — if one could do 
so without risk. 

“You are a priest of the Roman Church,” I began 
boldly. 

“ A very humble follower of the true Church, my 
son,” and the gentle, wise old face turned full upon 
me like the tender glow of a shaded lamp, — a lamp 
that I could not doubt had lighted many faltering 
feet upon the road, even if it was a road that had 
never commended itself to me. 

“ I am not of your fold. But if you will hear me 
under the seal of confession I would speak with 
you.” 

“ Speak on, my son. I have heard under that 
seal worse things than any you are likely to tell 


110 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


Very briefly, and without any names, I outlined 
my story, and explained my intentions. He heard 
it all in silence, the beautiful old head and lined face 
bent sympathetically towards me. 

“ I recognise fully,” I concluded, ‘‘ that what I am 
resolved to do is against all the laws of God and 
man. But . , . well, there it is. I must do it, and 
I intend to do it. Man’s judgment will be severe. 
God’s may, I trust, be mingled with mercy.” 

“ Always, my son, always ! ” he interjected. 

“ The man, you see, is a wretch. He deserves to 
die. The earth will be the cleaner for his removal, 
and it may be the saving of many whom he might 
bring to ruin if he is allowed to live.” 

“ You may safely leave him to God, my son.” 

‘‘ Meanwhile he is a curse to the world. ... I 
know all you would say, father,” — as he laid a thin, 
waxen, but very shapely hand on my knee. “ All 
the time I was in Dartmoor Prison ” 

“ Ah, — you were in Dartmoor ! ” — with a kind- 
ling of the eye. 

“ I was in prison for five years and three months 
. . . five hideous years . . . and three months which 
seemed as long as all the years that had gone.” 

“ I know, my son. I know. . . . Had you been 
of our faith, perchance . . .’’he said wistfully. 

“ It would have made no difference. Our own 
good man did his best, and I had to hold him at 
arm’s length all the time lest he should prevail. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


111 


You see, I lived through it all for this one thing 
alone. If I had not had that hope in me I do not 
think I could have borne it. . . . Oh, it has not 
been easy, I can assure you. There was something 
there, I don’t know what, which fought hard all the 
time to take me from my purpose. I think it was 
the sight of the wide free Moor outside. I could see 
it from the window of my cell, and it called and 
called perpetually to me to give up my own will in 
the matter. ...” 

“ God bless her ! ” he said fervently, and I 
turned and looked at him in great surprise. 

There was a thin flush of colour on the white 
cheek, and a radiant little glad star in the gentle 
eyes that searched me through and through. 

“ God bless her ! ” he said again, and seemed to 
enjoy the saying of it ; and I stared back at him in 
amazement, and wondered if he might possibly be 
not quite right in his mind. 

“ God bless whom ? ” I asked brusquely. 

‘‘ I will tell you, my son,” he said, in quite a 
joyous voice. “ Oh, it is good to hear, this that 
you tell me. . . . Listen ! ” — with the gentle con- 
straining hand on my knee again. “ Out there, on 
the confines of the Moor, we have a daughter in 
Christ — very dear to me, and to very many others — 
to all souls in trouble. A sweet and gracious woman, 
given to prayer, and eager to help and to save. The 
Prison is one of her special objects of petition. She 


112 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


craves the redemption of those poor troubled souls 
with a fervour that finds at times its reward. It 
was undoubtedly against her prayers you were 
fighting.” 

“ It may have been. But I do not thank her. 
She has given me many a trying hour and much 
strife of mind.” 

“ God bless her ! ” he said once more. ‘‘Will you 
take the advice of an old man who may pass at any 
moment, my son ? ” 

“ Not if it means giving up all I have lived for 
through all these years.” 

“ I do not ask that,” — and his emphasis of the 
first word showed me what his request would be. 
“ What I would beg of you is this. — Go back to the 
Moor ” 

“ I was going in any case, as soon as my term of 
probation expires. I want to see the cursed place 
from the outside and exult over it as a free 
man.” 

“ I understand,” he nodded. “ Well, when you 
are there, seek out this dear daughter of the Church, 
I beg of you, put your hands in hers, and tell her 
your story.” 

“ I will not,” I said roughly. “ I will suffer 
no interference in this matter.” 

He was a very wise old man. He took not the 
slightest notice of my brusqueries, but went on in 
his quiet earnest way. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


113 


“ I will write down her name for you in case you 
should think better of it. And even if you tear this 
up/’ — which his extraordinary acumen perceived 
to be my intention, — ‘‘ you will still never forget it. 
It is not only a beautiful name, but one of historic 
memory and significance,” — and in his voice as he 
pronounced it there was the savour of joyousness. 
“ She is the direct descendant of her who first bore 
that name and only by God’s mercy escaped the 
fate of her predecessors.” 

He traced the name delicately on the back of a 
card with the stub of a black-lead pencil and handed 
it to me. His own name, engraved on the card, was 
Shields, — the Very Rev. Dominic H. Shields, O.P. 

I did not destroy the card, as I had intended to 
do. It is here before me on the table as I write. 
I kept it to remind me of the fine old face and 
striking personality of the man, and it has served 
its purpose. 

The gentle wistful look with which he handed it 
to me would have prevented me destroying it at 
once in any case. I could no more have done that 
than I could have struck him in the face. Indeed, 
I knew he would have felt the blow the less of the 
two, and so, as he rose, stiffly and crampedly, from 
the log, I placed the card in my pocket-book and 
rose also. 

“ The sun is setting and I must get indoors,” 
he said. “ If you are going down we might go 


I 


114 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


together, and in the steep places you shall give 
me your arm.” 

Which I did, with a novel sensation of making 
instead of marring. And I was glad that I had done 
so, for I never saw him again. 

When I made enquiries at his Pension, I was told 
that he was too ill to receive visitors, and that was 
still his condition when I left. 


8 . 

11 /TY probationary term expired at last, and I 
d-TX fj.g 0 return to England with none 
to question or say me nay. 

After a couple of necessary days in London I set 
off at once for Dartmoor, going by way of Moreton 
Hampstead to Postbridge, which lies right in the 
heart of the Moor and within walking distance of 
the Prison. Princetown itself, of course, I could 
not go to, not had I any desire that way. 

It was a wonderful wild day of light and shade 
as I drove over the open moorland by Bush Down, 
walking with the driver alongside the carriage up 
the endless steep hills, till we came at last to the top- 
most point by the little wayside Warren Inn, and 
so, cautiously and with grinding brakes that thrilled 
one’s spine to the marrow, down the steep descent 
of Merripit Hill to the noisy shelter of the trees at 
Postbridge. 

As we came down the long white ribbon of a road, 
which wound on and on as far as the eye could reach, 
my driver punctiliously pointed out the gleaming 
roofs and houses of Princetown, perched up aloft 
under the brow of Hessary. 

115 


116 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“ Yon’s the big pris’n,” he said proprietorially. — 
“ Dartmoor Prison at Princetown. Twelve hundred 
of the worst they keep safe and tight in there, ’cept 
when one makes a bolt when the mists are out. 
And yon’s Believer ! ” — and I recognised the 
gracious triangular hill which for years had called 
to me from the window of my cell. 

Believer ! That was the first time I had heard its 
name. 

The sky was deep blue, banked round the horizon 
with piles of snow-white cloud, while, overhead, 
wisps of darker cloud sped before the wind and 
dappled hills and moors with madly galloping 
shadows which the chasing sunshine allowed not a 
moment’s rest. 

The keen sweet rush of the wind had in it cleansing 
and bracing beyond anything I had experienced 
since I left the prison. There was in it the very 
breath and essence of freedom. Perhaps that came 
from the feeling that that same wind, which I had 
sniffed so often behind the prison- walls, but always 
and inevitably tinctured with the prison-taint, blew 
now upon me a free man ; as free to come and go 
as it itself. 

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and no man 
knoweth whence it cometh or whither it goeth. 
How often behind my bars I had longed for the free- 
dom of the wind, and now at last I had come to it 
and it to me. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


117 


At the little hotel they gave me the end rooms 
nearest the bridge, — a sitting-room with a porch 
opening right on to the road, and a bedroom above 
reached by a narrow staircase out of the room itself. 
It was like a little house all to myself, and nothing 
could have been more to my mind. 

After tea I walked down the road, with the wind 
in the tormented trees above me making a noise like 
the sea on a shingly shore, and stood for a while on 
the bridge looking down into the swift amber rush 
of the Dart, as it sped among its gray boulders and 
under the great clapper-bridge towards the freedom 
of the sea. There were larks bursting up above 
with joyous songs of freedom. A troop of wild 
Dartmoor ponies with their tiny stilt-legged foals 
came careering down the road, with some boys and 
dogs vainly endeavouring to head them off. But 
the ponies had the pace of the boys, while as for 
the dogs they simply lowered their shaggy heads 
and made for them whenever they came too close, 
whereat the dogs tucked in their tails and ran. And 
I rejoiced in the wild freedom of it all, and in my 
long -anticipated share in it. 

I walked on and on to get another exultant glimpse 
of the Prison. On the shadowy moor on my right 
large birds were calling and hovering. I took 
them to be hawks. And there was the bleating 
of lambs and the deep responses of mother-sheep. 
A rabbit scurried across the white road and 


118 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


disappeared through a hole in the roughly-piled 
granite side-wall. A long-legged man, on a pony 
altogether disproportioned to his size, galloped past 
me with a cheery “ Good even’n ! ’’ 

I walked on and on in the failing light — the west 
all smouldering like a dying fire, the broken flying 
clouds up above tinged with purple — till I came to a 
bridge, and saw on my left the great rock-crowned 
triangle of Believer, and away under the dark purple- 
blue ridge of Hessary the lights of Princetown, like 
a string of shining gold beads on a cushion of velvet. 

I stood long looking at these two points that had 
meant so much in my life, — thinking back over it all, 
— the weary days and wearier nights behind the 
bars : the call of the Moor to my soul, which had 
somehow seemed to centre in that great green rock- 
crowned hill : all I had suffered, and why. And I 
exulted again in the freedom which brought the 
purpose of my life within reach of accomplishment. 
All I had to do now was to wait till that man came 
back from his mission. Then, in the full of his 
satisfaction, I would end him. 

Freedom for me meant only licence for the accom- 
plishment of my righteous vengeance and the cleans- 
ing off the earth of an evil-doer. 

(And so, as I have since been taught by My Lady, 
this which I looked upon as freedom was in very 
truth but a bondage worse than that of Princetown 
Jail itself, — a caging of the soul, in fetters of iron 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


119 


and gates of brass, compared with which all the bolts 
and bars of man’s imposing were no more than the 
filmy threads of the hedge-spider.) 

I sat on the mossy stones of the bridge, brooding 
on the past and the future, till the fires in the west 
burnt themselves out, leaving but a bank of gray 
ashes, while the amber water below me lost its last 
shimmer from the clouds above and became no 
more than a murmurous voice in the darkness. 

Then I groped my way back along the dim 
white road, in a silence more profound than I had 
ever known, and met not a single soul till the lights 
of Postbridge twinkled welcomingly through the 
trees. 

Yes, — this was freedom at last ; — freedom to feel 
myself once more a man ; — freedom to rid the earth 
of him who had poisoned all my life — past, present, 
and to come. 


9 . 


I WAS early afoot next day, and carrying some 
eatables I had asked them to put up for me, 
I set off at once for Believer. 

I had learned the best way from the girl who 
waited on me at the inn, and so turned in by the 
quarry, climbed the bank at the side, and struck a 
path that led straight up to the swelling breast of 
the Moor. 

It was again a mixed day of low-sailing clouds 
with occasional floods of sunshine, and the tints and 
tones of the distant hills and ridges rooted me to 
long gazing at times and stirred my brooding soul 
beyond its wont. 

The hill-side shadows were the deep, tender, 
purple-blue of uncut amethyst, with now and again 
glimpses between of distant country basking in 
sunlight and gleaming like bits of opal and aqua- 
marine. The wind was strong and sweet and 
bracing and sang through me of the new free life. 
Had I not been a man accursed, and given body and 
soul to anything less than the execution of a righteous 
vengeance, I must have been uplifted by it all. But 
I carried within myself the poison that admitted no 
antidote. 


120 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


121 


As I climbed I caught sight of the bold rock crown 
of Believer in front. The sun shone full upon him 
for a moment and he gleamed like the gold boss of 
a mighty green upturned shield. The heather 
through which I was walking had been burnt in 
places and the ground was thick with the blackened 
stalks which crackled crisply under my feet. A new 
strong growth of vivid green grass was already 
covering up the scars of the past and proclaiming a 
more hopeful and useful future. Wherein lay a 
parable for myself if I had had the heart and eyes 
to see it. But these as yet were tightly shut. It 
needed the touch of a gracious spirit to open them, 
and that time had not yet come. 

Here and there gray rocks pushed up through the 
earth, and there were unexpected holes and swampy 
places which the girl had told me specially to avoid. 
It was necessary to look carefully to one’s going to 
avoid pitfalls, and when I halted for another look 
at Believer he had disappeared, and all I could see 
was the bold sweep of the Moor running right up 
into the sky. 

I kept as straight a course as I could and pushed 
on, and the next time I stood he was there again. 
And the next time he was gone and the Moor was 
empty. And that strange elusiveness is Believer, 
as all who know him will testify. 

But, in spite of his tricksy ways, I found myself 
at last climbing, with a feeling of accomplishment, 


122 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


his actual green flank. I passed through the chaos 
of scattered gray boulders which compose his outer 
guard, and stood at last in the green way between 
the rough rock-towers, and then climbed up to the 
top of the high-piled slabs which form his western 
summit. 

And so my prison dream of lying there a free man 
came true. 

It was that first day of real full freedom on Believer 
that set me to jotting down some of the thoughts and 
feelings aroused in me by this new phase of my life. 

And as my time is very short, I will husband it by 
tearing out and inserting in places the notes I made 
in my pocket-book from time to time. They will, 
at all events, have the merit of being written on 
the spot, as it were, though when I wrote them I 
had no slightest idea of using them in any such 
fashion. I insert here what I wrote on Believer 
that very first day. 

As I write I am sitting on that green triangular 
hill with the great slabs of rock on top, which I used 
to gaze at from my prison window, and longed and 
longed, with a desire which became an absolute 
aching pain, to be free to climb, and there to lie 
just for once, savouring the full freedom of life 
before setting out on my final pursuit of death. 

It is called Believer, and the name rings well in 
my ears. For, ever and again, during my last years 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


123 


in the prison especially, I was conscious of some new 
outside influence on my thoughts and my life ; — 
something which in some strange way seemed to 
make it more and more difficult for me to stick to 
the only purpose for which I lived ; — something 
which called and called without ceasing to something 
else inside me to come out and shake off the shackles 
of the past, to leave it all behind, and begin again — 
a free new man, a new free life. 

More than once, even before this new feeling 
came upon me, I had been surprised and angered 
at finding my craving for vengeance on that other 
failing somewhat in its intensity. When such weak 
moods overtook me I would take myself to task, and 
curse myself for a coward and a poltroon, and by 
degrees force myself back to the necessary dourness 
of implacability. 

But I was conscious all along of the oddness of 
this necessity to screw myself down, as it were, to 
what I knew perfectly well was as evil a thing as 
life could produce. 

I had always believed that man tended to evil 
as sparks fly upward, and that good was the hard- 
won prize of perpetual struggle against the natural 
proclivity to sin. 

But in my case it was just the opposite. I found 
it necessary to strive constantly against the inclina- 
tion towards good, — or at all events against an 
inclination to let the dead past bury its dead, and 


124 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


not to disturb its dishonoured bones. And this 
caused me grievous distress of mind, and set me 
fearing that such slackening of resolution could only 
come from weakening of the brain and will. 

It also set me wondering at times whether good 
rather than evil might not possibly be, after all, the 
natural state of man, and that therefore evil was a 
lapse from moral health just as sickness is in the 
body. (And this I found later on to be My Dear 
Lady’s very assured belief.) 

And always, — I suppose from the fact that this 
green rock-crowned Believer was ever before me, 
the principal object in that wide outside freedom 
for which my soul craved more than for any mortal 
thing — though it craved it solely for the accomplish- 
ment of an evil purpose, — always. Believer, though 
I did not then know its name, represented to me my 
first stepping-stone to the desire of my life. 

If once I could set foot on Believer as a free man 
the rest would follow. 

(So it seemed to me. But — as I have probably 
said, though time is so short with me that I cannot 
search back through what I have written to verify 
it — Believer became by degrees very much more than 
that to me. And that is why its name, when at last 
I learned it, rang so pleasantly in my ears. 

It came, in some strange way, to represent in 
itself the call to freedom and a new and better life. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


126 


And, though I resented the call and strove against 
it, none of the resentment attached to the green 
hill itself. That, somehow, stood always in my 
mind for freedom and the wider and higher life. 

Bell-ever ! Bell-ever ! Yes, the name rings — and 
henceforth ever will ring, in my ears as, I suppose, 
a sanctuary bell rings in the ears and hearts of 
those in the habit of worshipping there. And 
presently you will see why.) 

As I sit in the lee of a pile of the great gray rock- 
shelves, those other grim gray buildings of Prince- 
town are right over against me under the long 
rounded hill, Hessary, which always shut us off 
from the sunsets. 

A moment ago, the sunshine, chasing the shadows 
swiftly along the green ridge, came full on the Prison 
and rested there, for the cheer and uplift of the 
wounded souls within, — or, may be, in surprise at 
the dolorous sight of them. 

With my glass I have been able to pick out the 
window of my cell. It is in Ward 8, the thirty- 
fourth window from the north end of Prison 5. And 
to sit looking at it from the outside, a free man on 
this green hill of freedom, at which I had gazed so 
often and so longingly from behind the bars, fills me 
with a storm of strangely mingled feelings. — Some- 
thing of gratitude that that most dismal living death 
is over and can never be mine again. For next time 


126 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


I shall most assuredly accomplish his death and my 
own. — More perhaps of exultation that I have lived 
through that life of death that I may kill him, and 
that he has lived to be killed by me. For either of 
us to have died in the meantime would surely have 
been grotesquest irony of Fate. — ^And, withal, 
something of that curious importunate sense of a 
power, either within or without me, which would 
have me cast it all aside and start life afresh, leaving 
that other, as that good old priest advised, to the 
God whom he outrages by still living. 

I can see the prisoners working in the fields, 
like tawny gray ants ; and the blacker ants pacing 
watchfully aloof from them are the armed warders 
in charge. The black buildings to the left are the 
warders’ houses, where those big burly representa- 
tives of law and order live, and have wives and 
families like lesser men within the law. 

How punctilious we were to keep on the right 
side of them ! How eager to give no slightest cause 
of offence lest a single mark should be lost ! 

If one came suddenly on me as I lie here, I fear 
the habitude of those five years of discipline would 
spring me to my feet at attention and give me away, 
though I know full well that I am beyond his power 
and he could not lay a finger upon me. 

After that first visit I spent much of my time on 
Believer. One or two of the other regular sights of 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


127 


the neighbourhood I went to — Grimspound, The 
Gray Wethers, Wistman’s Wood, which, however, 
was too near Princetown to please me, and down 
the Dart. But none of these held for me any attrac- 
tion comparable with that of Believer, and my feet 
got into the way of turning in at the quarry, and 
climbing the track across the Moor, as naturally as 
flowers turn to the sun. 

I spent most of my time there, whole days from 
earliest dawn to sunset, content to lie and watch 
the ever-changing aspects of the Moor, and to exult 
over the grim prison, crouched on the slope of the 
green hill opposite. At times it seemed to me like 
a veritable beast of prey, settling itself for a fresh 
spring at me, which would be the last. Though 
when that time came it would not, I knew, actually 
be in Dartmoor that the end would come. And I 
was glad of that. Still, that snake-like coil of 
buildings under Hessary represented to me the final 
might of the law I was about to outrage and defy, 
and I hated it and the sight of it. 

Those first long quiet days among the gray granite 
slabs were the happiest of my life. Possibly also 
they were given to me intentionally as a preparation 
for what was to come. 

The -wonder and ever-changing beauty of the 
Moor grew upon me more and more. It was en- 
thralling, obsessing. 

It was never twice the same, rarely indeed for 


128 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


many minutes at a time. And to a man accustomed 
to five years of deadly-monotonous routine, — where 
every duty had to be done to the minute and just 
sOy — it was that constant change, and the untram- 
melled freedom of which it was born, that fascinated 
my very soul. 

Those flying clouds and sweeping sunbursts were 
subject to no controls or times. The wild things of 
these vast spaces, the ponies, the sheep, the birds, they 
all roamed large and free. And I, a free man, lay and 
watched and delighted in their freedom and my own. 

No wonder Believer rings magically in my ears, 
and ever will do for the short span of life that may 
be left me. It will not be long. When the still 
greater freedom comes, may it still be given to me 
to return to Believer. If my body could lie below 
one of those great gray slabs. . . . But that will not be 
possible. My bones will dissolve in the quicklime of 
the prison -yard. Only in the spirit shall I ever see 
Believer again, and I care not how soon that may be. 

But, greatly as I enjoyed it all. Believer was still 
a place of bitter conflict for me. 

Day after daj^ that same grim fight went on, 
within me and without, — the evil that had become 
a very part of my soul fighting doggedly against all 
that Believer unconsciously stood for in my life. 

And I would lie stolidly watching the fight, in a 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 129 

strangely raised, aloof fashion that must have 
bordered on madness at times. 

The sweet clean rush of the wind thrust at me 
like the Spirit of God charged with cleansing and 
new life. 

(My Dear Lady once said to me that, to her, the 
free ubiquitous air, which is everywhere at once and 
without which man cannot live, is like unto God 
Himself and to some extent typifies Him to her.) 

And I felt its uplift, but pinched my face against 
it, and blew my smoke at it, and hugged my evil 
resolve the more closely. 

When the vast white masses of summer cloud 
floated serenely in the deep upper blue, and now and 
again — very often, in fact — grim flights of darker 
cloud would come sweeping in over the hills and 
charge at them till the whole sky was a-boil with the 
hurrying turmoil of the conflict, it seemed to me that 
there was my flght transferred to the heavens. The 
white clouds were my good angels, and the dark ones 
my bad, and I lay there like a spectator at a show, 
and watched them fight it out. I could see the 
sweep and whirl of the mighty wings, could feel and 
hear the rush of them ; and when at times the 
lightning ripped through and played viciously 
among my stones, and the thunder bellowed along 
the valleys and clapped among the distant tors, I 
exulted in it, in the vicious flashes and the evil roar, 
which chimed so well with that which was in me. 


130 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


Then the storm would sweep away to the east, 
trailing its filmy skirts in tatters over the ridges, 
and the sun would break through again, and over 
the distant valley under Hamildown a rainbow arch 
would linger as though loth to go. 

And yet, — I know it now — and indeed I was at 
times dimly conscious of it then, though I would not 
admit it even to my inmost thought — Believer and 
the Moor were working mightily in me for good. 
The quiet uplift and graciousness of it all wrought 
upon me in a way and with a power on which I had 
not counted. 

I fought against these better tendencies with 
every ounce of evil that was in me, and the struggle 
at times waxed exceedingly bitter, and left me angry 
and exhausted. 

I chafed at the bit, called myself coward and 
poltroon, raked up all the past and tortured myself 
with it, and hugged my evil resolve to my heart as 
a happier man might hug his first-born. 

At such times I would pace the grassy way between 
the great twin rock-towers for hours at a time, as 
though by the wearing out of the body the unquiet 
spirits within might also be laid to rest. And often 
I would climb the rough gray towers themselves 
and stand there gazing out over the Moor, as a 
beleaguered soul in extremity might watch for the 
coming of outside help. 

Very rarely did I go home till the gathering mists 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 131 

and shadows warned me of the dangers of crossing 
the Moor in the dark. 

I would lie and watch the distant hills turn from 
green and amber-brown to blue — dark blue — ^purple- 
amethyst, and the sky to deep unfathomable blue, 
paling towards the horizon all round to a clear pale 
cerulean that by contrast was almost white, — 
except in the west, over Princetown and Hessary 
and Longaford, where the amber ashes of the 
sunset still burned. And down below and all 
around me the rolling ridges and valleys of the Moor 
were all smoothed out by the shadows and the 
mists. 

One such evening, after a day of unusual conflict, 
I fell asleep as I lay watching. And when I woke, 
soaked with the heavy dew, the moon was up, and 
I was prisoner on a rocky islet in a silver sea. 

It was a wonderful sight. The night-mist lay 
thick and unbroken as far as I could see, except for 
the rounded top of Laughter Tor, which showed 
like another islet close at hand, and the moonlight 
gleamed on the ruffled white surface of the mist and 
turned it into a sea of frosted silver. 

The ghostly shadows of Believer’s rocks were 
black as ink, and the great gray piles themselves 
glimmered weird and uncanny in the strange light. 
The silence was overpowering, almost overwhelming. 
The cry of a sheep or a cow or a pony would have 
been a relief and a reassurance of life. I felt as 


132 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


though, for my sins, I had died and come to life 
again in a new dead silent world. 

But there was nothing of fear or discomfort in 
the feeling. Rather, a sense of peace, of unutterable 
thankfulness that the struggle was ended at last. 

Then, at last, as I tramped the grassy gangway 
between the rock-towers, unable to get away till I 
could see where I was going, I saw the curtains of 
the eastern sky flutter, as I had so often seen them 
from the window of my cell. The rosy fingers 
reached up tremulously as though feeling for the 
opening in the curtains ; the sky pulsed with tender 
colours right up to the zenith ; the sun peeped over 
the distant ridge ; the curtains opened wide ; and 
in that strange majestic silence which was ever 
astonishing to me the new day came gloriously 
through. And I stumbled down through the 
crackling heather-stalks of the Tor’s wide flank to 
breakfast. 

But Believer had endless surprises for me, and 
one of them gave me a nasty jar. (I insert another 
page from my note-book written the day after it 
occurred and while it was all still fresh in my mind.) 

— I was lying on Believer yesterday afternoon, 
fighting the same old wearisome battle, — or, say, 
stubbornly rejecting the good that the gracious in- 
fluences of the Moor urged upon me. It was a gray 
windy day, and suddenly, to my surprise at the 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 133 

speed of it, a dense white mist came rolling down 
over Hessary, evidently on the wings of a gale. 

The Prison was blotted out in an instant. One 
moment it was there and the next it was gone. 
And, before I had any chance of getting down to 
safety, the wall of mist came sweeping along, 
swallowing up ever3rthing as it came, and bottling 
me up there as securely as the great stone walls had 
done in Princetown. 

While I was still staring at the amazing speed of 
its advance there came along it the dull report of 
guns, and I knew only too well what that meant. 

Some poor devil, along there in the prison fields, 
had seen his opportunity and had made a bolt for 
freedom — and by this time was probably lying 
bleeding in the wet grass, with the panting warders 
gathered round and looking down at him as the 
hunter looks down at his quarry. 

When a mist comes over the Moor there is only 
one thing to be done — unless you are a convict — 
and that is to sit down wherever you happen to be 
and wait till it passes. For not only is the coiling 
veil absolutely bewildering to the senses, so that one 
might wander in ineffectual circles for hours or 
even days, but the Moor itself is full of pitfalls, 
easily avoidable with sight, but actively dangerous 
to the unseeing ; — hidden holes and outcropping rocks 
which make for broken legs, — and swampy mires into 
which a man might fall and never be seen again. 


134 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


All this I had been urgently warned against, and 
so, as the gale which brought the mist swept clam- 
mily round the great rocks of the Tor, I found a 
sheltered niche to leeward and squeezed as far into 
it as I could get. And there, with the collar of my 
coat turned up and my cap drawn down to my eyes, 
I lit a pipe, and pondered the discomforting possi- 
bility of having to stop there all night. 

All night ? — from all I had heard I might consider 
myself in luck if it ran to no more than that, for 
they had told me of fogs lasting for days. 

Sodden with the mist, which whirled past the 
opening of my crevice like the writhing folds of 
ghostly garments, and penetrated also through some 
hole^at the back, I pictured to myself the possibility 
of the next party of sightseers coming suddenly 
on my dead body, and rather enjoyed the thought 
of their discomfort. After all, it would be small 
compared with what my own would have been, 
though by that time all would be well with me. 

Then I determined that if the mist continued in 
the morning I would make a desperate effort to get 
down, on my hands and knees if necessary and with 
infinite precaution, to the high road which crosses 
Cherry Brook not a mile and a half from Believer. 
Surely, starting from the south side of the Tor and 
groping always downwards I should in time strike 
either the brook or the road. In any case I would 
not stay up there to starve, though I had an idea 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 135 

it took a good many days for a man actually to 
starve to death. 

I was stni gloomily cogitating these matters when 
I was startled by a sound that was not the buzzing 
of the fog- wind past the opening of my crevice. 

Voices, — subdued and hoarse with the fog, gasp- 
ings and pantings of men in the last extremity of 
distressful going, — and I saw two dim figures creep 
past like denser clots of mist and knew instinctively 
what they were. 

‘‘ HeU ! but it’s cold,” muttered one, muffling 
his mouth with his jacket as he stopped to cough 
up the fog from his overcharged lungs. 

“ Perishin’,” growled the other, and they propped 
themselves against the rock whose cleavage formed 
my crevice, breathing as though through sponges, 
in a way that was distressing even to listen to. 

“ Which way now ? ” 

“ Darned if I know. It’s all alike in this 

fog.” 

“ ’Bout done, I am. That bog nigh ended me.” 

‘‘ Same here. But we’ve got to go on. May’s 
well have a run for our money now.” 

‘‘ ’Tain’t worf it.” 

“ You’re right. But chance come an’ ” 

I was quite aware of the danger I was in. Escap- 
ing convicts as a rule have no desire to add more to 
their record than is absolutely necessary. 

They want clothes and they want money, and 


136 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


these they will take wherever they can lay hands 
on them. If they discovered me there, alone and 
unarmed, my clothes and my money they would 
certainly take, and the results to me personally 
could not be pleasant, — might indeed be much more 
than unpleasant. 

At any moment they might become aware of me. 

Necessity sharpened my wits. I had a fellow- 
feeling for them. I was sorry to harry them. But 
it was two against one, and in a stand-up fight my 
chances would have been small. 

I took what seemed to me the only course. And 
in any case it only hastened their departure by a 
minute or two. 

Making all the noise I could I advanced boldly 
out of my nook, crying, “ Here they are, boys ! 
Look out there ! ” — and with jerking oaths the two 
disappeared down the mist-wreathed slope of the 
Tor. I heard their scuffling feet as they stumbled 
and floundered over the thickly-strewn boulders, 
and they were gone. 

Satisfied that nothing further was to be appre- 
hended from the convicts, I was stepping back into 
my nook, for the mist-laden wind was discomforting, 
when once again I heard the sounds of approach on 
the side of the Tor opposite to that down which the 
others had fled, — heavy stumbling feet coming as 
swiftly as the evil circumstances permitted, and 
panting voices. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


137 


‘‘ Heavens ! ” thought I. ‘‘ Has the whole prison 
broken loose ? ’’ 

But as the voices drew nearer I recognised them 
as of quite a different calibre. More, — as I listened 
intently I recognised one voice and was able to 
allot it to its rightful owner. It was the voice of 
James Haltrop, one of the warders in Prison 5. 
I knew him well. 

‘‘ Could have sworn I heard a shout,” he panted, 
and I heard the strap-ring of his rifle rattle as he 
shifted it to the other shoulder. 

“ Sheep may be,” said his companion. “ Not 
our men, anyway. They’re not given to shout- 
ing.” 

I hugged the furthest inside corner of my hiding- 
place. There was no danger here, but I had no 
desire to renew the acquaintance of Haltrop or any 
of his fellows. And it would have been repugnant 
to me to give away the evaders. 

They poked about among the rocks for a minute 
or two, and climbed up on top, and then I heard 
them no more. But I stood all night in my nook 
lest they should be lying low somewhere about the 
Tor, and a longer night I never endured. 

The mist still hung thick in the morning. But I 
was starved and cramped, and as soon as I could 
see the ground below my feet I set off cautiously 
for the high road or Cherry Brook, and in time, 
weary and bemired, I came upon the latter and 


138 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


followed it up till I reached the road, and so got 
back to Postbridge. 

That spell of fog lasted three whole days, and the 
next two of them I spent in bed — not much the 
worse for my adventure, but very tired and enjoying 
the novel rest. 

Rest of body indeed, and I needed it. But, most 
of the time, my soul was in a tumult and my thoughts 
whirling madly. 

All the old fierce conflict raged round me and in 
me more bitterly than ever. 

Possibly it was that coming suddenly face to face 
with the prison taint again that stirred me so. I 
grew sick with the stress of it. 

What madness it was, to think of falling again 
into that awful pit — and worse. Here I was, purged 
by the law — a free man. And of my own free will 
I was going to plunge into it once more, and this 
time beyond any possibility of redemption ! Sheer 
madness ! 

But — urged my demon — for this alone you have 
lived and suffered. Will you, like a coward, turn 
back now ? The man still lives. The wrong is not 
atoned, and nothing but his blood can atone it. 
Besides, you will be serving your kind by destroying 
his power for further ill. 

Leave him to God ! 

Seek him out and slay him ! 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


139 


To do some active good in the world is serving 
your kind better than the slaying of one evil man. 

This is simple cowardice, born maybe of over- 
strain. For seven years you have lived for this sole 
thing. If you are a man, carry it through ! Cleanse 
the record with his blood ! Make an end ! 

So, they fought for my soul — my daemons and my 
demons, the good angels and the bad. And I was 
the battle-ground and suffered as battle-grounds 
must. 

I was torn with the conflict. More than once I 
considered — as deliberately as was possible to me — 
the still greater cowardice of evading both issues 
and ending the struggle by making an end of myself. 
The final peace of death presented itself to me as 
the most desirable thing I could attain. 

But physically I experienced no ill-effects. My 
stay in Dartmoor Prison, though I had not been 
exposed to the rigours of the outdoor men, had yet 
hardened me beyond the reach of ordinary colds, 
and as soon as the hunger and cramping pains were 
gone I was, to that extent, aU right again, — only 
in mind and soul troubled past the bearing. 

(My Dear Lady of the Moor says emphatically 
that nothing happens without good reason, and that 
even the things which seem not good to us at the 
time still turn to good. And undoubtedly it was so 
in this case.) 


10 . 


HILE I lay in bed resting, that second day, 



^ ^ Hepsy, the maid, in the kindness of her 
heart brought me up from one of the other sitting- 
rooms an armful of books to help the time pass. 
And thereby, all unconsciously, saved a sinful soul 
from the destruction towards which it was set. 

(I have good reason now to hope, indeed, that two 
sinful souls may go to her credit in the Great Books 
up above.) 

I turned over her assortment without much 
interest. There was Baring - Gould’s ‘Dartmoor.’ 
I read all he had to say about Believer. There was 
Burnard’s ‘ Dartmoor Pictorial Records ’ in four 
volumes. I looked at the plates and read aU he had 
to say about Believer. And there were several of 
Eden Phillpotts’ novels, all about the Moor. 

And then I came on a book by a lady writer of 
whom I had never heard. The cover attracted me 
by its presentation of a Tor which seemed to me like 
Believer. 

The title also suggested Believer. (See note 
below.) And though, for the moment, I had had 

{Note hy the Editor . — Daunt in his MS. of course gives the title 
of the book and the author’s name. But these My Lady struck 
out, and when I asked her why, she simply said, “We do not 
need any such advertisement.”) 


140 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


141 


quite enough of Believer, it had so wrought itself 
into my heart and mind that I opened the book and 
read. 

I read on and on, drawn irresistibly by something 
which I could not put into words, but which charmed 
and fascinated me. I read the book through, and 
then read it again more slowly and thoughtfully, 
savouring every word with enjoyment. 

There was in it for me, as I have said, a curious 
charm and fascination. It was not a novel in the 
ordinary sense. There was little or no plot. It told 
simply of the Moor and the Moor-folk, human and 
otherwise, their joys and sorrows, their comedies 
and tragedies, but with such insight and sympathy 
that I read on and on with sheerest delight, and 
found myself unconsciously formulating in my mind 
a very distinct impression of the writer herself. 
And it was that, I know now, which charmed me so. 

Hitherto no woman, except my sister Honor, had 
come into my life to any extent worth speaking of. 

(I have little doubt that had it been otherwise 
things might have gone differently with me. And 
yet, as matters stand, I say deliberately that I 
would not, as far as myself was concerned, have had 
things altered by so much as one iota. For it is 
only by reason of the depths I have plumbed that 
I have been able to measure the full height of that 
which, by God’s grace and My Lady’s, has been 
vouchsafed me. The unsinning and unbroken can 


142 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


never savour the cup of forgiveness, and the healing 
touch of mercy and pity, as do those who have lain 
without the pale and void of hope.) 

The vision I formed of the writer of the book, 
from her own delicious little bits of self-revelation 
which cropped out on almost every page, was 
entrancing to me. 

I pictured her to myself as tall and graceful, 
bearing herself with the quiet assurance of a very 
distinctive individuality, yet welcomed by her 
smaller neighbours on terms which spoke volumes 
for her. 

She was, I perceived, a landowner, and was filled 
with understandable joy by the feeling that the 
land under her foot as she walked was inalienably 
her very own. 

She was young and supple and slender, — “ How 
good it is to be alive ! ’’ — read. — Often I wonder 
whether many people feel the joy of living as I do. 
I hope, indeed, that they do. To me every moment 
of the twenty-four hours is ecstasy, varied ecstasy. 
... All movement is ecstasy. When I walk . . . 
it is for the rapture of the motion — ^the spring of 
arched insteps, supple limbs, swaying body, moist 
skin, and strong, slow heart-beats. . . .’* 

And again, — “ I am full to my finger-tips of life, 
health, happiness ; every minute of the day is a joy. 
. . . My home is perfect. . . . I have got my heart’s 
desire — ^life on Dartmoor till death.” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


143 


She had golden hair and a fine complexion, I 
learned. Her eyes would probably be blue or gray ; 
on this point her pages gave no light. She was on 
the best of terms with all the birds, animals, and 
children within her sphere, and her love of the Moor 
was a veritable religion, a perpetual paean of praise 
and thanksgiving, and — I could see, if as yet perhaps 
but dimly — a means of grace and uplift, both for 
herself and through her to her readers. 

Moreover, Believer, which meant so much to me, 
seemed, in some strange way which I could not 
fathom, to mean still more to her. In some deep, 
hidden way Believer was sacramental to her, and 
I could not but wonder, and long to know why. 

She wrote of “ the sanctuary of Believer — the 
central Tor of Dartmoor, — the core of the heart of 
the Moor. Believer is not only the centre of the 
Moor, you can see that it is the centre. Hey, 
the steadfast sentinel, looms midge-like against the 
eastern sky. Longaford lifts his huge bulk in the 
near west, and on the southern side are the low 
gray walls of the great Prison, coiled under the 
Hessarys like some savage mammoth reptile,” — 
my own very thought ! — almost my very words ! 

So she too knew the grim gray Prison — but only 
from the outside. She could not possibly know it 
as I knew it, not feel the menace of it — past, present, 
and future, — as I felt it. 

Yet there was in her large heart room amid all her 


144 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


happiness of life for thought of the prisoned souls. 
For she wrote of, — “ the hopeful sunlight which gilds 
the dreary place, not in mockery, but in earnest of 
some happy future awaiting every weary convict 
whose cell window flashes quivering gold mes- 
sages athwart the dusk rim of the tor-crowned 
hiUs.’’ 

Ay, if human nature was all of her pattern and 
texture there might still be hope in life for weary 
convicts, — and possibly even for sin-bound souls, 
who, having emerged from the darkness, are strenu- 
ously set on plunging back into darkness deeper 
still. 

And again, she wrote, — “ Believer loves me more 
than any tor loves me, because I alone saw a certain 
vision of white manhood lying, like a sacrificial 
victim, upon one of his great altar-like slabs of 
granite. Ah, yes. Believer and I have our secrets, 
one at least of which will be revealed, with fitting 
glory, when the Recording Angel at last opens his 
golden scroll. Only one who ever reads this book 
will understand the meaning of this passage, and 
I doubt if even he knows that he alone holds, and 
always will hold, my heart in the hollow of his 
hand.^’— 

How I pondered those strange weighty words, 
and wondered as to their hidden meaning ! 

They pointed surely to some great heart-sorrow 
which had come upon her on Believer. And they 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 145 

were the most — almost the only — sorrowful words 
in the whole of her good glad book. 

Everywhere else she was the consoler, the un- 
failing adviser, the maker-up of quarrels, the joyful 
welcomer of new-born babies, human and otherwise, 
the best friend and counsellor of the living, and still 
more of the loving, the panegyrist of perpetual 
hope, the fearless comforter of the dying and the 
bereaved. 

And all these things so amply perhaps — so it 
suggested itself to me — because of that very sorrow 
which was in some strange way connected with 
Believer. 

Further — in my conception of her, derived from 
her own pages — she was a skilled and conscientious 
housekeeper ; a mighty walker, — I could imagine 
the joyous spring and grace of her carriage ; she had 
the keenest of eyes and ears for all the sights and 
sounds around her, the sense of an artist for all the 
wonderful colours of the Moor, and the pen of a 
poet in describing them. 

And her deeper thoughts. — On one page I read, 
of one of her humble characters : 

“ He was that mightiest being in all creation — a 
man, and a man who had risen to the summit of 
manhood’s perfection, inasmuch as he was ready to 
lay down his life for his love. I turned away in 
silence. Speech would have been an unthinkable 
sacrilege. I made my way out of the field, with bent 

L 


146 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


head, thanking God that my unworthy eyes had 
been permitted to gaze straight into that holy of 
holies, the heart of a normal man.” 

I was seized, as I read that, of the sudden, over- 
whelming desire that she should gaze also into the 
heart of at least one abnormal man. And I wondered 
what she would make of it. 

And again I read, with a strange vital hunger for 
closer touch with one who knew so well and could 
so write : 

“ Day, the blood-stained, was dead. Twilight 
was come to soothe and heal with her dews of earth 
and her stars of heaven. It was symbolic of his 
heart, the heart of a man in which bloody strife 
was dead, and wherein now reigned the soft darkness 
of faith, fragrant with the dews of sorrow, gemmed 
with the stars of hope.” 

What would she have to say, I wondered, to a 
heart which hugged bloody strife as its only hope, 
and resolutely chose the darkness, and shut out the 
light ? 

And she was a student of faces, as indeed every 
delineator of character must needs be ; and I too 
found that study a fascinating one. What was her 
own face like, I wondered ; and craved the sight 
of it. 

For there is nothing more futile than the attempt 
to visualise the unknown. The result is rarely 
satisfactory. Imagination is, as a rule, a cleverer. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


147 


because a kinder and more sympathetic, artist than 
Life. We limn the ideal as we would have it, but 
Life always sticks to actual facts, and actual fact is 
not always beautiful. 

The craving grew within me to seek out this girl, 
or woman, or whatever she was, and learn how near 
my ideal of her came to her real self. 

Again I read, — “ Each rough-hewn tragedy con- 
tains the germ of love. There is no such thing in 
the world as unmixed evil. May we not hope that 
love will triumph over all things before the end ? ” 

Yes, she, in the spaciousness and graciousness of 
her life on these uplifting heights, might indeed so 
hope, but for one whose life lay in the shadows there 
could be no such joyous outlook. She did not know 
everything. How could any girl or woman fathom 
the covered ways, the hidden darknesses, of the 
hearts of men. 

Yet her faith in ultimate good was incurably 
strong, for she ended on this triumphant note, — 
“ Such is my Credo. I believe that in her last agony 
she, poor outcast, turned to God and threw herself 
on His infinite mercy, even as she died. To whom 
else can we turn when we are forsaken by man and 
utterly desolate ? He knows. He knows. He knows, 
— or He would not be God. ... I saw that out of 
all evil, love rises triumphant at last. I saw that 
while the Moor stands, clothed in her regal purple, 
as long as the Dart flows from her mighty bosom, so 


148 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


will love stand, royal, invincible ; so will love flow 
unfailing through all the ages, subduing all things 
to himself before the end.” 

(Knowing me now, as you do, through and 
through, you can understand, — you who wrote that 
book, — all that it was to me. For two whole days, 
in the thoughts it kindled in me, and in my eager 
search of its pages for some adequate vision of 
yomself, it lifted me out of my slough of evil and 
despondency. It dropped a new white seed of 
interest into my life. In the end, as you know, it 
drew me out of darkness into the light of a new hope. 

It has seemed to me since, that I searched your 
book very much as Christian men and women were 
bidden to search the Scriptures. I read with care 
and diligence for larger knowledge of yourself, and 
eventually for indications by which I might find 
you out. 

In the first place, however, and on the spur of the 
feeling induced in me, I wrote to you direct, in care 
of your publishers, begging permission to call on 
you, and, if that were granted, the favour of your 
address. But, during the days which must elapse 
before I could possibly receive an answer, I also set 
to work on my own account to track you down in 
your moorland home, from the indications given in 
the book itself.) 


11 . 


I T proved in reality a less difficult business than 
I expected. 

Careful study of the map, and taking as indicatory 
points — Believer, Princetown, and some height 
called by the writer of the book “ Dream Tor,” 
which I could not identify, but from which Teign- 
mouth and the sea were visible, three days’ steady 
tramping and much casually cautious enquiry led 
me to the little village named by the writer of the 
book — Graystone. 

There, after tea at the little inn under the shadow 
of the gray old church spire, I was directed to follow 
the lane down past the church till I came to a house 
with green windows. And in due course I stood 
outside the little green gate that led into the fore- 
court of Hey sham House. 

It was a golden evening. The sky was clear pale 
blue. The level beams of the sun bathed all the 
Moor in front of the house, and the string of Tors 
which topped it, with a radiance of gold upon their 
greens and grays which had in it something of 
almost unearthly beauty. I was glad to see it so 
for the first time. It was so perfectly in keeping 
149 


150 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

with all I had been imagining of her who lived 
there. 

The house was evidently a very old one with a 
new wing added, built, all in keeping, of Dartmoor 
granite, and roofed with low-browed russet thatch. 
The doorway, in the older part, was heavily arched, 
and above it a brass sundial shone in the reflected 
glow from the Moor and the Tors. It was just such 
a house as I could have imagined and would have 
chosen for the writer of that book. 

I knocked at the door, wondering much at my own 
temerity, but still more impelled, by that within 
me which had led me thus far in my quest, to go 
through with it to the end. 

And how little I imagined what that end would be ! 

Indeed and indeed — how little ! How utterly 
unconscious of the magnitude of what I was doing 
did I knock on that door ! — just a heavily-arched, 
low-browed green door ! . . . the door to new life 
in this world, — the doorway to the larger life of the 
next ! But of this, at the time, I knew nothing. 

The door was opened by a comely, middle-aged 
woman, who eyed me, I thought, without any special 
disfavour, if with some surprise. 

“ I have come to see the writer of that book about 
the Moor,” I said bluntly. ‘‘ Can I see her ? ” 

She hesitated ; then asked, ‘‘ Did she ask you to 
come ? ” 

“ Through her book — yes. She does not know 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


151 


me, nor I her. But I beg of you to ask her if I may 
speak with her.” 

Perhaps she noticed my weariness, for I had 
walked far, — or the anxious desire in my face. 
Perhaps she was not unaccustomed to such callers. 

‘‘ You’d maybe better come in,” she said. 

I followed her in, and after seeing me seated, she 
went away through the curtains which covered a 
doorway at the far end of the room, and I heard the 
click of a distant door-latch. 

It was a long low room, with a massive crooked 
beam running the length of the ceiling, and an 
immense fire-place with the usual Devonshire 
narrow curtain along its top, and a fire of peats 
smouldering redly on a great fiat iron trestle raised 
about a foot from the hearth. 

On the shelf above the fire-place was a row of 
gleaming copper pans and kettles. The only window 
was alongside the door. The golden glow from the 
Moor and the Tors filled the room with its tempered 
glory — a soft suffused radiance which had in it 
something of mysterious charm. 

I can see it all in my mind exactly as I saw it that 
first wonderful evening. It is great joy to me to 
recall it and live it all over again. And many, many 
times since then have I done that. 

Between the window and the fire-place was a 
writing-table, with dainty furnishings and obviously 
in constant use. Round the room were bookcases 


152 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


and cabinets. All the furniture, I noticed, was carved 
black oak and looked very old and solid. 

Everywhere and everything subtly conveyed that 
same impression, which the outside of the house had 
already given me, of age and solidity. There was 
about it all a novel feeling of peace and security 
which ministered in some strange way to my sick 
soul. 

The solid old house and the solid old furniture 
seemed to say, “ Here we are. We have served 
many generations and shall serve many more. You 
can rely safely upon us.” 

I felt, in short— I, who had had little experience 
of such things, and had only left a prison cell to 
become a homeless wanderer — that I was in the 
quiet, deep-rooted and well-ordered home of a 
gentlewoman, — and therewith a novel peace and 
contentment of soul. 

The distant door-latch clicked again, the curtains 
at the far end of the room opened, and the elderly 
serving-woman came in. 

“ Miss Beatrice will see you. She will be with you 
in a minute or two,” she said quietly, and withdrew. 
And I sat and waited, knowing that when next the 
curtains opened it would be to admit the lady of the 
book. 

And as I sat and watched them hungrily, in no 
little perturbation of mind, as the full realisation 
of my intrusion welled over me, there was borne 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


153 


in upon me the curious feeling that I had gone 
through just this same experience before — of waiting 
eagerly for the parting of the curtains to admit a 
longed-for presence. 

I knew I had not. My mind was preternaturally 
clear, and alive with keenest anticipation. And yet 
the feeling was strong upon me. But as I puzzled 
over it the explanation came. 

How many times had I stood on my stool at my 
cell-window gazing out at the dark curtains of the 
east and waiting for the coming of the new day ? 
For, even though it was but a new day of prison 
toil and dull subservience to prison rules, it still 
reduced by one the total of the days I had to serve, 
and so I looked forward to each as it came with the 
hunger for freedom upon me. 

Now, in just that same way, I sat gazing at these 
more material curtains, and I wondered briefly what 
their opening would bring me. . . . What I was 
there for ; — what I was going to say and do ; — how 
explain myself and my unwarrantable intrusion ; — 
I knew not. 

All I could say was that the reading of her book 
had constrained me to come, — as a sick or suffering 
child turns instinctively to its mother if it has one, — 
if not, then to any who looks like possible help. 

And I was sick and suffering if ever man in this 
world was. I thought she would understand. Yes, 
the writer of that book, with her immense faith in 


154 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


the innate goodness of God, and the possibilities 
awaiting even the convicts in Dartmoor Jail, could 
not fail to understand. 

How long I waited in this state of tense expectancy 
I know not. But at length the distant latch clicked 
softly again. The curtains fluttered, just as the 
curtains of the dawn used to do when the rosy 
fingers of light stole up to part them. 

Then a soft white hand drew one aside. That was 
the very first I saw of her — the slim white hand 
which had written the words that had drawn me 
to her. And then she came through — My Lady 
of the Moor-Book, my Dear Lady of the Moor 
herself. 

And at the very first glimpse of her face, in the 
soft golden glamour of the room, I knew that it was 
well with me, and I thanked God I had come. 

As to what really happened at that momentous 
first moment of meeting I have but the vaguest 
recollection. I have had to draw upon both our 
memories, chiefly upon My Lady’s, for she was by 
much the more collected of the two. And that was 
natural after all, natural both to her and to the 
circumstances. 

Nature endowed her with an unusually calm and 
lofty mind and heart, and these, as I came to learn, 
she lifted to the highest plane of equanimity by 
most fervent prayer, by retirement sufficient to 
relieve her from the over-pressure of the world, and 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 155 

by closest communion and intimacy with the Higher 
Powers. 

Life had not brought me into connection with 
specially prayerful people, since my mother died. 
I never met, — I had never even imagined it possible 
for any mortal to live on such terms of personal famili- 
arity and friendship with her Maker as did My Lady. 
She was, still is, and will be till I die, the most 
wonderful being in that respect that I ever met. 

In recalling all the details of our great friendship, 
as I love to do, I have never once myself seen her 
unduly upset about even the most untoward 
happening. 

That she could be so, — that she had but recently 
gone through fiery trial, and was even now still in 
the valley of shadows, I only learned later from 
herself. 

But all this I only came to know by degrees. 

At that first meeting I do not doubt that I 
behaved — as she once in one of her light moods 
assured me, — like a mixture of stuck pig and starving 
dog. 

She has told me that, as she came through the 
curtains, I sprang up out of my chair like a coiled 
spring or a striking adder, and came at her with 
craving hands which grasped both hers as a drowning 
man clutches at straws. 

I do not doubt that it was so — that I clutched her 
in most unmannerly fashion and eyed her hungrily 


156 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


and thirstily, — stared at her, in fact, in so rude a way 
that any other might well have taken umbrage. 
For, you see, it was not simply even the writer of 
that book which had so profoundly moved me that 
I was laying hold of in this rude fashion, — it was, 
in some vague way — not even understood by myself 
at the time — a sudden outleap of my soul towards 
a new and most amazing hope. 

My own confused recollection is of the feel of two 
soft hands in which warm pulses throbbed, and of 
two gray eyes full of quiet understanding, and 
of a calm, high, gracious face, touched, as well it 
might be, with something of surprise, but more of 
curiosity. 

And, as I gazed into the clear depths of the calm 
gray eyes, a quietness of soul such as I had never 
before experienced fell upon me, a sudden filling to 
the brim of the cup of expectancy such as comes to 
a man but once or twice in a lifetime. I felt, as I 
have never felt before or since, a sudden sense of 
absolute self -surrender to the sweet soul that looked 
out through those gray eyes — a sense of implicit 
and unbounded confidence that here was good 
incarnate, — that it was well to be here. 

I was raised and excited of course at this much- 
anticipated meeting ; but that, so far as I can recall 
it, was the feeling that was in me at the time. 

£ She was the first to speak, as, again, was but 
natural, for her wits were always consummately 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 157 

within her control and eloquence is one of her many 
gifts. 

And the first words that passed between us were, 
I believe, somewhat as follows : 

“ What can I do for you ? ’’ she asked, with- 
drawing her hands and stepping back a pace or two. 
And that I know was ever her first thought with 
strangers who sought her uninvited. “ And — if 
you please, sir, — who are you, and what brought 
you ? 

“ I ... I ... I . . — she tells me I stam- 
mered, and I do not doubt it, though it was not 
one of my usual failings, for I was a silent soul and 
rather said nothing than say it badly. “ Your 
book,” — I managed to get out. 

“ Which book ? ” 

“ Your Moor-Book. . . . Believer . . . and the 
Prison . . . and ” 

“ Ah ! ” — and she eyed me with increased interest. 

“ It appeals to you ? ” she asked quietly. 

“ To my very soul.” 

“ With reason ? ” 

“ With reason such as few can have.” 

“ Ah ! ” she breathed quietly again, in something 
like a grateful sigh. 

Then, looking levelly across at me out of the 
serenity of her soul, she said quietly, “ Please come ! ” 
and turned and went through the curtains, and I 
followed, wondering. 


158 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


Along a corridor, with windows on one side and 
many cabinets and paintings on the other. But the 
windows faced away from the sunset and gave on 
to a sheltered garden and farmyard and trees, and 
so the light was growing dim. Besides, my mind was 
wholly with my conductress and these other things 
engaged it but slightly. 

My clearest recollection of that long passage is the 
stately poise of a head crowned with thick golden 
coils which seemed to catch and radiate such light 
as there was, and I followed it somewhat mazedly, 
wondering whither it was leading me. 

The latch I heard before clicked again, and 
we passed out through a wooden porch into the 
glimmering golden twilight, and in two steps 
entered a tiny white chamber in which, like a steady 
star of Hope, hung a ruby lamp before a gold and 
white altar. 

The pure whiteness of the little sanctuary was 
full again of the golden glamour of the sunset, 
suffused and commingled with the tones of stained- 
glass windows. On the wall above the altar was a 
white crucified Christ, stained blood-red by the ruby 
lamp. 

The lady of the book passed noiselessly into one 
of the rows of seats and sank quietly on to her knees, 
and resumed her prayers, which my troubled con- 
science told me my unauthorised coming had 
interrupted. I knelt by her side and surrendered 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 159 

myself to the strangeness and sacramental peace of 
it all. 

We knelt so for a very considerable time ; she, 
immersed in prayer and obviously oblivious to any- 
thing else ; I, in a vast confusion of mind and soul, 
wondering why I was there and what I expected 
her to be able to do for me. 

The spirit of peace and uplift of that little white 
chapel was all about me like an active atmosphere. 
It pressed in upon me on every side. It seemed 
indeed to penetrate and permeate my physical 
being. It was, I perceived as plainly as though it 
had been as actually visible as a Dartmoor mist, 
an atmosphere charged and surcharged with prayer. 
And in my blindness and bitterness I fought against 
it even as I knelt, though I felt certain she was 
praying for me with all her heart and soul. 

I know I knelt there saying over and over again 
with wild insurgence, “ I will not ! I will not ! 
I will not ! ” And yet — why else had I come ? 

And when I lifted my eyes they rested on the 
pitiful face of the dying Christ, red in the light of the 
ruby lamp. The lamp was burning low towards 
its renewal and flickered slightly now and again. 
And whenever it did so the face on the cross seemed 
alive in its agony of compassionate tenderness. 

I stared at it hypnotically. It was only a piece of 
carved ivory on a piece of wood. I knew that 
perfectly well. But, to me, in the soul-silence of 


160 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


that little white sanctuary, it spoke with an in- 
sistent voice that rapped sharply on the tightened 
strings of my heart. 

“ This for thee ! — and thou wilt not ! ” 

Again and again it struck full at the very centre 
of my being, at the very roots of my life. 

And I set my teeth and said to my soul, — ‘‘ I will 
not ! I will not ! I will not ! ” 

And yet I was conscious of a growing conviction 
that whatsoever this girl kneeling by my side should 
require me to do I must do it. And that what she 
would require of me would be nothing less than 
completest surrender of that for which alone I lived. 

Again and again I asked myself what I had come 
for. I vituperated myself for coming. But I was 
there. 

Possibly, in her great wisdom and intimate 
knowledge of troubled souls. My Lady purposely 
extended her prayers that night — perhaps to give 
me time to pull myself together, — perhaps to let 
the sanctity of her little holy place have its due 
effect upon me. 

But at last she raised herself noiselessly into her 
seat, and sat for a few moments gazing quietly at 
the Christ and the altar, as though the sacred 
privacy of her prayers must not be too closely 
intruded upon by other — I had almost written 
outside matters. But when once I used that word 
she corrected me quickly. “ There are no outside 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 161 

matters/’ she said. “ In here the outside becomes 
the inside, and nothing is too small to come in.” 

I had risen also and sat waiting her pleasure, in 
a curious turmoil of hope and foreboding as to what 
that pleasure would be. 

Finally, making the sign of the cross, she turned 
to me and said quietly : 

“ Do you care to tell me your name ? Don’t if 
you would rather not.” 

“ I have more than one name. To some I am 
known as Ian Carril.” 

She reached out an impulsive hand, and again 
I experienced the charm of her soft, sufficing 
touch. 

“ I guessed as much, but was not sure. And I am 
glad to greet you, Ian Carril. But did you not get 
my letter ? ” 

“ I have had no letter. But I could not wait. 
Your book constrained me and I had to come. . . . 
Though why I have come I do not know, nor how 
you can help me. Did your letter tell me not to 
come ? ” 

“ It asked you to at all events postpone coming 
just now — ^for purely personal reasons. But since 
you have come I am glad to greet you. I have read 
a good deal of you. And some of you, much of you, 
I do not like. You are too sombre and hopeless. 
But I recognise its worth. It comes from the heart. 
You have had trouble and sorrow,” 


162 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“ I live with them. For nine years they have 
been my only companions.” 

“ That is too long. Trouble and sorrow are good 
in their places. We could not get along without 
them. But ... as only companions ! . . . and of 
one’s own choice ! . . . No ! Then they become 
heavy burdens and fetter the soul. It is like a man 
deliberately choosing to live behind the bars when 
he could, if he chose, live a free man.” 

I stared at her amazedly. Did she then know all 
about me ? 

“ You know me then ? ” I jerked. 

“ Only what you have yourself told me. Do not 
tell me anything you would rather not. Tell me only 
how I can help you in your trouble.” 

It is no use consulting a physician and concealing 
the truth. As I sat gazing into those true gray eyes 
I knew I could trust her implicitly — her discretion, 
her wisdom, her uttermost sympathy. There was 
that in her virgin-motherly look that drew my soul 
out of its hiding-place. 

“ For five years and more I was a convict in the 
Prison over there ” — I jerked my head towards 
Princetown. 

“ Then I thank God for you ! ” she said warmly, 
and took hold of my hand again. “ For five years 
and more I have been praying for you and the rest. 
You are an answer to my prayers, and I am glad. 
Tell me, if you will.” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


163 


And I told her ; brokenly and stumblingly — I 
told her everything, — baldly enough and as shortly 
as I could ; and, — I remember, cautiously avoiding 
any mention of that other man’s name lest any 
whisper of my intentions should reach him. And 
she listened absorbedly. 

‘‘ Why I came to you, I do not know,” I ended. 
“ Your book — the parts about Believer — and the 
infinite goodness of God — the final triumph of 
goodness and love — ^they worked in me. ... I had 
to come . . . though why . . 

“ I thank God that you came ! It was He 
brought you in answer to my prayers. Many come 
to me so, and at times it is given to me to help 
them. This little chapel has heard many worse 
stories than yours. There are, to me, clean sins and 
dirty ones. Yours is sin, indeed, but to me it is one 
of the clean sins. It is not for yourseK and it is not 
mean. . . . But, my friend, it — cannot — be ! You 
have got to put it behind you and leave your ven- 
geance to God. He will see to it, you may be sure ; 
and He would not have you commit sin in order 
to help Him.” 

‘‘ I knew you would say that,” I said gloomily. 
‘‘ For nine years I have lived only for this. I would 
as lief die as give it up.” 

“ Better to die clean than soiled beyond redemp- 
tion ; — though, indeed, as to that last I am very 
broad-minded ; — as God Himself is, as I very well 


164 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


know. Even if you did this thing I would never 
give up my hopes for you. If I feel so, how much 
more must He ? ” 

“ I cannot give it up. It is all I live for.” 

You must give it up. And you will live for 
better things,” she said, with a sweet imperiousness. 

I knew in the end she must have her way, but all 
the evil impulses of my nine lost years were up in 
arms at the prospect of their baulking, and they 
fought against her furiously. 

“ I know,” she said, with astonishing acumen. 
“It is not easy to give up in a moment what you 
have nursed for years, — even though you know it to 
be an evil child. But it has got to be. . . . Where 
are you staying ? ” 

“ At Postbridge,” — and I started up, wondering 
how I could possibly get back across the Moor in 
the dark. 

“ You cannot get back to-night. They will put 
you up at the inn. Will you promise me, before you 
go, to give this thing up ? ” and she looked into my 
eyes with winning entreaty. 

“ No. ... I cannot. . . . Not yet. ... In time 
perhaps. ... I do not know. ... It is the only 
thing I have to live for.” 

“You will find others,” she said meaningly, and 
took my hand again. “ You are meant for better 
things than to die on the gallows, Ian Carril. Will 
you do one thing to please me ? ” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


165 


“ I will do anything but that.” 

“ Then take a room at the inn here, go over to- 
morrow for your things, and stop here for a time. 
Will you do that ? ” 

“ Yes, I will do that much.” 

She turned and sank to her knees again for a 
moment, and I stood looking down at her bowed 
head and the crowning wonder of her hair. It was 
very beautiful. The golden coils glinted in the 
flickering light of the ruby lamp. Little tendrils of 
spun gold clustered about her white neck and 
twisted themselves round my lonely heart. I had 
never felt towards any woman as I did towards this 
one. 

Then she rose, crossed herseK again, and before 
opening the door, picked up a freshly-charged lamp 
from under a seat. Stepping lightly up on to the 
bench, and placing one foot on the rail in front, 
she leaned forward, reached up to the ruby lamp, and 
lit the fresh one at it by means of a match, and 
slipped it into the swinging socket in place of the 
other one. 

I had watched with some apprehension lest she 
should overbalance, or the rail should give under 
her. It looked very precarious. But it was done in 
a moment with the deftness of custom, and she came 
towards me carrying the dying lamp in her hand. 

“ It is like the love of God which burns on and on 
for ever,” she smiled as she came. 


166 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

Then she opened the door and we went out into 
the night. 

She led me to a little wicket-gate in the granite 
wall. 

“ You cannot lose your way. Keep straight on 
up the lane and you’ll come to the church and the 
inn. You will come to me again to-morrow night ? ” 

“ Yes, I will come.” 

She gave me her hand again and turned and went 
into the house, and I went back, slowly and some- 
what mazedly, along the road by which I had come. 

There was still light in the sky. At that time of 
year it rarely goes quite dark there, I found. There 
was even a dull smoulder of amber in the west. 
As I went slowly along the lane, the fragrance of 
growing things — roses and honeysuckle, I thought — 
was all about me, and presently I came to running 
water — a bridge below which flowed a swift brown 
stream. 

I sat down on a great boulder on the bank of the 
stream and thought it all over, but as yet mostly 
about her. And, in spite of the resurgence of the 
evil that was in me, I thanked God for putting it 
into my heart to seek her out, and her for admitting 
me. The very fact and manner of her receiving me 
so — an absolute stranger, — and accepting me so — 
on my own simple word, was a revelation to me of 
the gracious possibilities of a new and higher plane 
than any I had ever reached. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


167 


And as I sat and brooded, I conjured up the vision 
of her again, — the golden crown of her hair, — the 
winning gray eyes, — the sweet high face, now rapt 
in prayer, now bent towards me in quick sympathy 
and understanding, — the black gown which set o£E 
the fairness of her neck and face, — ^the unconscious 
grace of her every movement, — the golden glamour 
of that room and of the little white chapel, — the 
stately poise of the head that had led me down the 
passage from the room to the chapel. 

The evil in me cried out loudly that all these were 
but means to her end. That she was set on beguiling 
me from that on which I was set. They cried, 
“ Beware ! 

Then on the stHlness of the night I heard her 
voice again, — “ Better to die clean than soiled 
beyond redemption. ... You are meant for better 
things than to die on the gallows, Ian Carril. . . . 
Leave your vengeance to God. He will see to it. 
. . . He would not have you commit sin in order 
to help Him. . . . Will you promise me, before 
you go? . . 

And I had gone without promising. 

So clear and insistent was her voice to me — it 
seemed to come from just the other side of the 
bridge, — that I could have sworn it was herself 
speaking there ; — and I sat and stared across into 
the shadows, and wondered vaguely if she could 
have followed me to plead with me once more before 


168 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

the darkness of the night settled down upon my 
soul. 

The fixed resolve of nine hard years to be sur- 
rendered at the asking of a girl ! . . . 

“ Fool ! ’’ snickered my demons. — “ To be be- 
guiled by a face and a head of yellow hair ! ’’ And 
the strife began again. 

When I rose at last to go, my mind in a tumult 
with it all, my eyes lighted on a mighty pointed 
crown, silhouetted black against the dying amber 
of the sky, just above — apparently resting on — the 
tops of the overarching trees in front of me, and I 
stood staring at it in surprise that was not very far 
from awe. 

It seemed like a veritable endorsement of all My 
Lady of the Book had been impressing upon me. 
Here I lingered in the shadows. There above me 
hung the crown. Everything seemed to work 
against me. 

Only when at last I moved on did I discover that 
this crown at all events was a solid and material one. 
It was, in fact, the four-pointed crown of the old 
church-spire just topping the trees, and by them 
cut ofi sharp just below where the points rose up 
out of their battlemented base. But never after- 
wards — often as I saw it so — did I lose that 
first striking impression of it on my troubled 
mind. 

(My Lady would have found in it a symbol of 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


169 


hope. And perhaps she would not have been very 
far wrong.) 

I went on to the inn and arranged to stay there. 
They gave me the quietest room in the house, over- 
looking the garden and the huge rolling slopes, still 
rimmed with light, of what I came to know later 
as Hamildown. But, though my bodily comfort 
was great, I slept little that night. 

My life was at its crisis and I knew it. I was at 
the great divide which confronts most souls at 
least once on the long journey. As I decided now, 
so would it be with me through all eternity. 

And my demons gibed at the word, and told me 
all that kind of thing was long since exploded and 
I need not worry myself about it. 

Next day I hired a trap and drove over to Post- 
bridge for my belongings ; a long drive across the 
open moor under a low gray sky, with swathes of 
low-hanging cloud on many of the Tors, and drifting 
mists, and sudden wild sweeps of rain on a gusty 
wind that tried the temper of both man and beast. 

We made a prosperous journey, however, in spite 
of the weather, and on the way home the sun broke 
through in the west and set the dripping moorland 
all agleam with gold and diamonds. And after a 
hot bath and dinner I was standing once more on 
the little bridge over the brown stream, in the lane 
that led to the house with the green casements. 

And as I stood looking down into the swift amber 


170 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


flow, with the bright green cresses swinging to and 
fro just below the surface, and the rushes and forget- 
me-nots clustering thick along its banks, I became 
aware again of My Lady’s voice just as I had heard 
it in the darkness the night before. 

And, following the sound to its source, I found it 
came from a boulder a little lower down the stream, 
against which the water welled melodiously with 
exactly the intonations of her own musical speech. 

With her words ringing in my ears I went on, and 
presently I was sitting again, all alone, in the little 
white chapel. I noticed now that it was covered 
outside with climbing blood-red roses, which crept 
up into the brown thatch and twined round the 
granite cross over the doorway. 

I sat and gazed at the Christ on the cross behind 
the ruby lamp, and the figures on the wall above the 
altar, — the Good Shepherd carrying a white lamb 
in His arms and holding by His crook a darker one 
at His feet ; — a Madonna and Child ; — an angel in 
golden armour, with a drawn sword, trampling on 
a dragon. They all seemed to offer me morals and 
suggestions. 

Over the back of the bench in front of me was a 
white veil and a rosary, and on the long seat many 
books. The setting sun shone in through the open 
door, and lit up the flowers on the altar, and filled 
the little white place with golden glamour again. 

While I waited, — since my own thoughts were 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


171 


anything but cheerful companions, — I picked up 
one and another of the books on the bench in front 
of me. And I lighted on one — a little book of prayer 
— written or compiled by one whose name touched 
lightly some chord in my memory. 

I could not at first find any clue to it. Then 
suddenly I remembered. It was the name of the 
old priest’s ‘ dear daughter in Christ,’ of whom I 
had never thought since that day in the pine wood 
above Davos. It simply struck me as curious that I 
should come across it again at this time, and I 
opened it and read some of the prayers. 

And presently, light and noiseless as a shadow, 
the Lady of the Book came in and sank upon her 
knees in the front seat. 

I had not seen her come. My head was aching 
horribly with my sleepless night and the turmoil 
of my brain, and perhaps with the keen wind of 
the Moor. I had closed my tired eyes for a moment, 
and when I opened them she was kneeling there in 
front of me, dressed now in a flowing pale blue gown 
with rich lace about it. 

I rubbed my eyes to make sure I was not dream- 
ing, and when they happened to light on the 
Madonna up above I noticed that My Lady’s robe 
and hers were of precisely the same shade. 

Whether she had seen me in my remote corner 
I did not know. I sat and waited and watched her. 
And again there stole over me, and in upon me, that 


172 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


sense of an atmosphere charged with prayer, of an 
unusually close intimacy between this fair supplicant 
and Him to whom she prayed. I had never myself 
felt anything of the kind, but I could well believe, 
as I sat watching the fervour of her devotions, that 
in that little white chamber they two met and spoke 
together. 

I had ample opportunity of watching her, both 
then and later, and I know that at such times she 
was absolutely oblivious to all earthly things, — in 
the spirit far more than in the body. 

I wondered if she was praying for me, among all 
her petitions. I did* not doubt that she got many 
answers to her prayers. For if prayers ever were 
answered it seemed to me it would be hard to refuse 
such as hers. 

At last she lifted her head, raised herself noiselessly 
into her seat, and sat looking quietly and full of 
thought at the altar and the Christ. 

Then she crossed herself and rose and turned 
towards me, with outstretched hands and welcoming 
smile. 

‘‘You are comfortably settled at the inn ? ’’ she 
asked, and the gray eyes searched my face— and 
more. My heart and my conscience felt them. 

“ Quite comfortably, thank you. They have given 
me nice quiet rooms, but I did not sleep much all the 
same.” 

“ I suppose not,” she answered understandingly. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


173 


“ But you will. You must get up to some of the 
Tors. I have certain favourites. I will take you. 
. . . You have not yet quite come to the point of 
promising me what I want, I see.’* 

I shook my head gloomily. 

“ It will be all right,” she said, with most cheerful 
decision, as though indeed she knew all about it and 
had settled it all herseK. “ I have been praying 
for it and you. And you are so well worth praying 
for that I know my prayer will be answered. Are 
you going to steal my book ? ” she smilingly asked. 
I had forgotten it was still in my hand. 

“ I was struck by the name,” I said. “ I was 
reading it before you came in. I met an old priest 
at Davos and he begged me to call on a lady of 
this name. She also lived on Dartmoor. I have 
never thought of her from that day to this. Do you 
happen to know her ? ” 

“ Yes, I happen to know her,” she smiled. “ The 

dear old man ” 

“ You knew him also ? ” 

“ He is one of my very dearest friends.” 

‘‘ He begged me to call on this lady ” 

“ And you came.” 

I looked at her in doubt as to her meaning. 

“lam ,” she smiled. “ It was to me Father 

Dominic sent you, and you have come, you see. 
Just as you will to That Other. If you set yourself 
to it you will find it as interesting as I do to watch 


174 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


how He works things out. He is very wonderful, 
and such a gentleman. He never neglects and He 
never forgets. Of course, if we ask things that would 
not be best for us He cannot do what we want. 
And often He does it in quite a different way from 
what we expect. But He never neglects and He 
never forgets.” 

“ You are a great believer.” 

“ I have reason to be. Now, to-morrow, if you 
will be here at ten I will take you one of my favourite 
walks. Tell them to put you up lunch for two at the 
inn and I will bring coffee in a thermos. I have 
been working hard all day and I am going to bed 
early. Good night, and God be with you ! ” 

I went along the lane, with the great black crown 
floating above the tree-tops in front of me, and 
lingered on the bridge again to hear her voice in 
the stream. And it said to me, as though she herself 
were speaking : 

“ He never neglects. He never forgets. It will 
be all right.” Over and over again it said it as long 
as I stayed to listen. The insistent murmur of it 
followed me up the lane. 

It was another wonderful evening. The sun had 
burned furiously to his setting as though resentful 
of the day’s vailing. The east was still dark with 
the driven clouds, but up above me the rain- washed 
sky was tenderest pale-blue, like My Lady’s robes 
in the chapel, and through the trees I caught 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


175 


gleams of the western sky all aglow yet with the 
after-sunset. 

With some idea of tiring myself to the point of 
getting some sleep that night, I turned to the right 
by the church, and struck up the long white road 
that ran up and up the steep hill-side straight into 
the pale-blue sky at the top. 

I tramped on and on, and the gap at the head of 
the wide valley in which Graystone lies, — where 
the great flank of Hamildown sweeps down in 
smooth, flowing curves to meet the sharper fall of 
the opposite ridge, — was all purest lucent green 
suffused with amber, so exquisitely soft and rare 
in the tenuity of its dilatation that one seemed to 
be gazing into the very atmosphere of heaven. 
And here and there across it, like the iron bars of a 
cell-window, were floating islands of cloud as black 
as ink. Their other sides were no doubt glowing gold, 
but the sides they turned to me were ebon black. 

The bold curves of the hill-tops were silhouetted 
against it as clean and sharp as though out out of 
black cardboard. Where the opposing hill-flanks 
met at the head of the valley, a bristle of forest-land 
showed like the serrations of a mighty saw. 

Even the sunset sky seemed bent to My Lady’s 
service in this work to which she had set her hand 
and heart — ay, and all her sweet, strenuous, 
prayerful soul. 

Her words kept ringing in my ears, — “ Better to 


176 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


die clean. ... You are meant for better things 
than to die on the gallows. . . . He will see to it. 
... He never neglects and He never forgets. . . . 
It will be all right ! ” 

They pounded at my soul as I plodded steadily 
upwards, and the black-barred, amber-green sky 
seemed to emphasise them. Those rare sweet 
heavenly spaces beyond were to me like that to 
which My Lady would have me attain. The ebon 
bars were my own familiar demons who would hold 
me back. 

The wisdom which had kept her from pressing 
the matter for the moment was not without its 
effect on me. I paid tribute to her acumen. It 
commended her both to my mind and my heart. 

I was mentally and bodily tired. Discussion of 
one’s sins, even with her and on the very highest 
plane, would have been too much for me. I would 
not — I could not — have said one word to wound 
her. But I should inevitably have gone home sore 
and bruised — perhaps even with some aversion to 
any further reference to the matter. 

But as it was, in her wise and sympathetic under- 
standing of human nature, and perhaps especially 
of the hearts of men, she had left the seeds she had 
planted to strike root in their own way and at their 
own time. And I was grateful to her. 

Yes, — she was undeniably wise and thoughtful. 
And the earnest advice — the strenuous desire — of 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


177 


this wise and thoughtful soul was that I should 
relinquish that for which alone I had suffered so 
much and endured so much, — that I should cast it 
all behind me, — Cleave that man to the God he out- 
raged, — and settle down to the ordinary routine 
of life like other ordinary men. 

It would not be easy. If you have nursed a thing 
in your soul for nine black years, — hugging it to you 
as your only hope, feeding it on tears of bitterness and 
the ashes of acrid recollection, — even though it be 
an evil thing and you know it, it is not an easy thing 
to surrender it at the first demand. No, not even 
though that demand come through the medium of 
a sweet wise saint in human guise. 

And then — the cowardly weakness of it all ! 
With every justifiable reason for removing so griev- 
ous a defiler of God’s fairest handiwork, — to let him 
live on for further mischief ! How could I ? Was 
it right that I should ? 

“ Leave him to God ! ” said the old priest, — a 
godly man, whatever his particular tenets. 

“ Leave him to God ! ” said My Lady, — a saintly 
woman, even to my limited experience of such. 

But, without doubt, God at times — perhaps 
always — chooses human instruments to carry out 
His designs. And if ever human instrument was 
designed to carry out a special vengeance surely 
I was in this case. 

So again the strife in me went on as I climbed the 

N 


178 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


white road, till its granite side-walls failed and I 
was on the open Moor. I stood awhile looking 
down into the broad valley below, where only here 
and there a twinkling light showed, and out over 
the distant hills, ridge beyond ridge just faintly 
visible under the paler rim that edged the horizon. 

Somewhere down there, to the left, lay the brown 
thatched roofs of Heysham, — the old house, the 
fair white sanctuary, — and there My Lady was 
sleeping in confident hope that all would yet go 
well with me. 

She had poured out her soul in prayer for me and 
she had no doubts as to the result. — “ He never 
neglects, and He never forgets. He is very wonder- 
ful, and such a gentleman ! ” 

The western fires had burned themselves out. 
The tender green and amber had gone out of the 
sky and left it the colour of steel. In the east the 
moon had risen and completed the rout of the rain- 
clouds, and there the sky was now as wonderful as 
the sunset had been. 

As though from out of the moon had come a 
mighty rushing wind, the black clouds had been 
thrust aside and rolled back as from a centre in 
curly scrolls whose inner sides were silver, leaving 
a clear space of illimitable depth across which 
travelled thin white fleeces hurrying to escape. 
And the wonder of that gracious inner void was 
like that of the sunset — a revelation of infinity. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


179 


Those thin white clouds marvellously heightened 
the effect of the distance behind, I noticed. A cloud- 
less black void would not have conveyed half the 
feeling of fathomless depth. So with life, it seemed 
to me. Neither the wholly clouded nor the wholly 
unclouded life is life at its truest and fullest. It is 
the mingling of the lights and shadows that make 
manifest its measureless heights and depths. 

On my right rose a rocky Tor with a still greater 
one behind him, and the ridge on my left was 
a-bristle with smaller Tors. I spread my coat on 
the ground in that great solitude and lay flat, with 
my head on my folded arms, and looked up into 
the wonder-spaces of the moonlit sky. There was 
not a sound . . . infinite silence . . . infinite depths 
of heavenly space. ... I felt that I lay, as it were, 
face to face with God. 

I might have been the last lone soul left on earth, 
— a puny human soul lying there, bare and abashed, 
under the eye of his Maker. 

And there I lay, and thought, and thought, and 
did my very best to bring myself to My Lady’s way 
of thinking. For truly, in the light of this latest 
revelation of herseff as the old priest’s dear daughter 
in Christ, who had made the lost souls in Princetown 
such objects of her fervent prayers, it did seem as 
though some special influence had led me to her. 

For years I had fought against it, and so un- 
consciously against her, knowing only that unless 


180 


MY LADY OP THE MOOR 


I won the evil day my sole desire and object in life 
were gone, and I might as well be dead. 

And now we were come to grips, and I had a 
feeling in me that she would prevail. How could 
any man stand out against such an one in happy 
league with powers omnipotent ? . . . I found 
within myself also a great curiosity to see how she 
would carry on the fight. 

That it would be in some novel and thoroughly 
characteristic fashion I felt sure. The appeal she 
made to me, mentally, and physically, and to some 
extent spiritually, was enormous ; and to myself, 
up there in the gracious silence and spacious dark- 
ness of the Moor-night, I was forced to admit it. 


12 . 


X WAS sitting in the little white chapel next 
morning before ten o’clock, with the homely 
sounds of the farmyard filtering in through the open 
door and windows, and away up on the Moor the 
lambs were calling to their mothers. 

After sitting quietly absorbing the utter peace of 
it all for a time, I picked up one of the many books 
strewn about the bench in front of me. They all 
presented themselves to me as bits of herself. From 
these she drew her inspirations, and the spiritual 
uplift which set that look of hopeful confidence in 
the calm gray eyes. 

As it happened, it was the same little compilation 
of prayers which had brought me to the knowledge 
of her other self the night before. As I was examin- 
ing its title page with added interest, I saw that the 
fly-leaves were all written over, and the writing, I 
felt sure, was her own. 

It consisted of texts, verses, lines from the lives 
of the saints — ^little scraps of spiritual help which 
she had evidently desired to keep constantly before 
her. And many of them came close home to me. 

I read, — “ Judge not that ye he not judged. Only 
infinite knowledge is adequate for judging.'' 

181 


182 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


‘‘ The weaker and unworthier a soul is in itself ^ 
the greater is My delight in uplifting and adorning it, 
and the more does it ultimately add to My glory. 

“ Let me judge the weakness of others with the same 
tenderness and pity that You have shown to me.” 

“ Suffering is not sent in anger or punishment, hut 
with love, to make you more like to Me, the Man of 
Sorrows.^^ 

There were some lines beginning : 

Is any grieved or tired ? Yea, hy God's Will ; 

Surely God's will alone is good and best ; 

O, weary man, in weariness take rest. 

0, hungry man, hy hunger feast thy fill. 

Discern thy good beneath a mask of ill. 

Or build of loneliness thy secret nest. . . . 

And then, by the eclipse of the light in the door- 
way, I became aware of My Lady standing there 
and smiling in at me. 

She was dressed all in brown, with short skirts 
for the Moor, and strong little brown shoes, and her 
face was radiant. 

‘‘ A whole day out always sends my mercury 
away up,” she said gaily, as we struck up the Moor 
past the stream. ‘‘ And it is a unique joy to have 
an intelligent man to go with. Women as a rule 
do talk such piffle. Don’t you think so, Ian Carril ? ” 

“ I’ve had so little to do with women. Certainly 
most of those I saw at one time were very piffly, — 
pleasure-chasers, one and all, and never getting 
there, it seemed to me.” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


183 


“ Exactly. Why, I’ve had women come up here 
where we’re going, and talk fashions the whole time. 
Fashions don’t interest us on Dartymoor one little 
bit ” 

I glanced at her tailor-made serge, which seemed 
to me the height of excellence in cut and finish. 
And she caught me at it, — there was very little 
missed her quick observant eye — and she laughed. 
“ Oh, one dresses correctly, of course. Noblesse 
oblige. But this is all home-made, and I shall wear 
it for three more years at least. This happens to 
be its first. I’m going to take you to some of the 
places in my book. I wonder if you’ll recognise 
them.” 

“ I shall. I’ve got it at my finger-ends. I studied 
it very closely, you see. It appealed to me as very 
few books ever have done. That, I suppose, was 
because of my special circumstances. And then I 
studied it in order to get some idea of the writer, — 
and then again to find her out.” 

“ And how did your idea of the writer fit with fact 
when you had so cleverly found her out ? ” 

“ Very well in some respects. Not at all in 
others.” 

“ Oh, — do tell ! Explain, sir ! ” she said, as 
eagerly as a child. 

And all that first delightful day we spent on the 
Moor together that was her mood, — as joyous and 
light-hearted as a child out for a holiday. 


184 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


It was difficult to believe that any sore trouble 
had ever touched her. Yet now, in the full light of 
day, when at times her face was in repose — which, 
indeed, was not often, for she was set on getting 
fullest enjoyment out of every minute of every hour 
and her face responded eloquently — I got the im- 
pression of past sorrows, bravely borne, and carried 
now with the lofty calm of a mind stayed on higher 
things. 

She led me, with the springing step and supple 
grace her book had led me to expect, through seas 
of billowing green bracken, in which the newly-shorn 
sheep here and there looked like floating pearls, to 
Hound Tor. And there we sat long among the 
bristling rocks, talking books and men, and the 
wonders and glories of the Moor spread all below us. 

She criticised my work with acute but kindly 
understanding, and boldly averred her belief that 
there was better stuff in me than had yet come out. 
And we discussed her book, which was all of her 
work that I knew as yet, and she promised to 
remedy that default forthwith by lending me others. 

She told me much about her life and work among 
the outcast and criminal classes before she came to 
live on the Moor, and many quaint and touching 
stories about them. And never once did she refer, 
even remotely, to my own troublous case and delayed 
decision. 

That was a mighty relief to me, and again I 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


185 


recognised in it the supreme wisdom of a surely 
divinely-guided heart in its dealings with a sinner 
above most. 

It was for me a full day of richest enjoyment — of 
such high joy, indeed, as my life had never hitherto 
even remotely glimpsed. And, judging by outward 
appearances, she also had found her pleasure in it. 

She led me home over further moors, and through 
the woods whose serrated tops I had seen silhouetted 
against the sunset sky the night before, and so 
down the wide valley, and under the great Tors 
confronting Hamildown, whose names, she im- 
pressed upon me, were Honeybags and Chinkwell 
and Bell. 

“You must learn your geography,” she laughed. 
“You are sure you will know them again ? ” 

“ I shall never forget them,” I assured her. 
“ Nor Hound Tor. Will you take me one day to 
your own private Dream Tor ? I have searched the 
map in vain for it.” 

“You will not find it on the map. Perhaps one 
day I will take you there. It is not many I so 
favour.” 

We parted at the bridge over the stream, as she 
forbade me to accompany her further ; and I 
lingered long there after she had gone, to hear her 
voice still in the soft melodious ripple of the water 
against its hidden boulder. 

As I mused, later on that night, over all the day’s 


186 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


doings, and recalled the charm of her talk and all her 
ways, I thanked God, as I think I had never thanked 
Him before in all my life, — with fervent meaning, 
for permitting me this brief glimpse of better things. 

I slept that night as I had not slept for months, 
— nay, for years, and woke in the morning with a 
feeling of renewal — of renascence almost, and with 
a keen desire for more such days of uplift and enjoy- 
ment. 

The two following days I was to spend by myself, 
as My Lady’s time was to be fully occupied by 
literary and other work. 

I knew, from her book, that she was a notable 
housewife and prided herself on it. Among other 
things, during our much talk — ‘ great tell,’ she called 
it — on Hound Tor, I learned that she did much of 
the household work herself, with the assistance of 
a man and his wife who lived in the neighbouring 
cottage. It was the wife who so cautiously appraised 
me that first night and finally admitted me as 
harmless. 

And My Lady obviously enjoyed this mingling 
of occupations. She held that both her literary and 
her housework benefited by the constant change 
which prevented either from becoming mere routine, 
and in that I have no doubt she was right, as she 
was in most things. 

I spent the day on Hound Tor again, doing much 
the same round as on the previous day, but sadly 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 187 

lacked my companion and found myself very much 
poorer company. 

I was, however, in much better condition, men- 
tally and perhaps spiritually. I had had a sight of 
the better land in which a man may dwell if he will, 
and the craving for more, engendered by that first 
taste, was making for good in me. 

Oh, the wisdom My Lady showed in leaving her 
little white seeds to root and shoot of their own 
accord ! 

On Hound Tor she sowed a fresh crop through the 
unconscious glimpses she gave me of what life on 
the higher plane might be. Little crystalline bits 
of self-revelation which shone in the darkness of 
my soul like stars in a black sky, and continued to 
ray forth hope and comfort unceasingly ; — particles 
of spiritual radium which pulsed a healthier life 
through all my being. 

I felt myself getting the better of my demons. 
My white angels, headed and marshalled by My 
Lady, began at last to make some headway against 
the evil hordes that had ridden me so hard for nine 
long years. 

On my way home I climbed to the top of Chink- 
well, and lay there looking down over the valley, 
and found in the distance the brown thatched roofs 
of Heysham nestling snugly among their cushiony 
trees, like a set of broody hens in a meadow. 

And I lay there looking at the brown roofs till 


188 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


the sun went down, and I thought and thought. 
But now there was more of light in my thought 
than of darkness. 

At night I went up to the little white chapel, for 
the confirmation of its peace and prayerfulness, and 
when My Lady stole softly in and had said her 
prayers, she shook me warmly by the hand, with 
a quiet searching look and a smile that showed me 
how glad she was to see me there. 


13 . 


rilHEREAFTER, in pursuance of My Lady’s 
settled intention of plucking my soul out of 
its net of evil resolve and saving it alive, we had 
many Moor-walks, and climbed and sat and talked 
among most of the Tors within reach, and I came 
to know and love her countryside very dearly. 

Rippon and Hey and Saddle, and Hamildown in 
all his mighty length and breadth, and Tunhill and 
Bonehill and Bell, and Chinkwell and Honeybags ; 
and the chequered paths and glades of Lizwell 
Woods, with the white-streaked amber Webburn 
rushing to wed the Dart ; and Dartmeet itself, over 
the Moor, past the Coffin-stone, — I came to know 
and love them all. And, though there were many 
days when her duties kept her at home, she was 
still ever with me even when I rambled among them 
alone. 

And, from that very first night, she never once 
referred to my troubles nor pressed me to come to 
a decision. 

In her uncommon wisdom — drawn, I doubt not, 
from her associates of the little white chapel — she 
quietly opened to me the brighter possible side of 
189 


190 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


life, and let the beauty and peace and satisfaction 
of it offer its own contrast to the shadows in which 
I lived. And no better means could she have 
devised for the cure of my sick soul. Urgency or 
argument might have provoked resistance. One 
does not for mere words readily surrender the 
cherished ideas of nine black years, even though 
they be venomous as adders. Nay — maybe there- 
fore one clings to them the more tightly. 

She was wise beyond most, and though she never 
asked or argued, each time we met, the calm gray 
eyes sought hopefully for sign of what was working 
in me, and often I caught them resting wistfully on 
me when I had not been aware of it. That she 
spent much time on her knees on my behalf I was 
certain, and I thanked her gratefully in my heart 
and let it turn to her, and to all that she represented 
to me of goodness and hope, as fully as she could 
have wished. 

Then one never-to-be-forgotten day she said 
quietly : 

“ I am going to take you to Dream Tor to-day.’' 

And I answered, “ It is what I have been hoping 
for.” 

For I knew that that meant much to her, and for 
me it was the seal and confirmation of our friendship. 

She was more silent than usual as we climbed up 
and up through seas of waving bracken, and when 
at last we reached the summit of the little Tor 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


191 


unmarked on any map, we still sat long without 
speaking. She, gazing quietly — a little sadly, I 
thought — at the wonderful view spread all around 
us ; I, too full of gladness for speech. 

It was one of those wonder-days of quick-travel- 
ling cloud across a deep-blue sunny sky, with sudden 
glooms and sprinkles of rain, which bring out all 
the witcheries of the Moor to perfection. The 
distant Tors were emeralds and amethysts in turn, 
the far-away lower lands shone in the sun like strips 
of opal, and every shower blazoned the Moor with 
sparkling dust of diamonds. 

She roused herself at last and pointed out what 
was to be seen, — Teignmouth, with its blue bay and 
silver river, and the dim coast-line beyond Dart- 
mouth, — all the friendly Tors I had come to know 
so well. 

Then, as we watched, ‘‘ the sunlight fell upon a 
glittering palace far in the west, a crystal palace, 
obviously peopled by fair ladyes and gallant 
knights, ’’ — the very words of her book came back 
to me as I recognised it, with a crinkle of discomfort, 
as Prince town and the Prison. 

She had been watching me. Her friendly hand 
reached out to me and she asked quietly : 

“ Well ? ’’ 

And I bent and kissed the saving hand that had 
lifted me out of the mire — the first woman’s hand 
I had ever kissed in my life, save Honor’s, as she died. 


192 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“It is ended. I am your man.” 

“ No !— God’s.” 

“ And yours. For you have saved my soul alive.” 

“ Thank God ! ” she said fervently ; and we sat 
on in a great and wonderful silence, looking out over 
a new earth — towards a new heaven. 

“ I was heading straight for the gallows,” I said 
haltingly at last. My tongue always tripped when 
I was stirred to the depths and generally kept me 
silent. “ I was surely going straight to hell, and you 
have lifted me up to heaven. I can’t tell you ” 

“You don’t need to. I know. Do you know why 
this is the favourite of all my Tors ? ” 

“ No, — unless it is that you see most of your 
others from it.” 

“It is because I could see she nodded 

towards the passing vision of the Prison. 

“ You see,” she explained, in answer to my sur- 
prised stare, “ the chapel in the prison was at that 
time the only place within sight where the Sacra- 
mental Presence dwelt. And I loved to come and 
sit up here and feast my soul upon it even in the 
distance. And always I prayed for the troubled 
souls within the walls.” 

“ And I, for one, felt your prayers, though I did 
not know what it was that called to me. It was like 
a living cry from the Moor, and it fought in me 
against my evil will. It gave me many a sleepless 
night and many a troubled day.” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


193 


“ Thank God ! ... He is very wonderful,” and 
we dropped into silence again. 

“ That is surely Believer,” I said at last, as my 
eyes kept returning to the lordly triangular hill 
which lay, gleaming and glooming in the sweeps of 
sunburst and shadow, directly between us and the 
Prison. 

“ Yes,” — so softly that I barely caught it. 

“Will you one day take me to Believer ? It has 
meant so very much to me. ... It used to call 
to me from my prison window. It and you ! It was 
the first step to this. ... It would feel to me like 
the capstone of this bridge you have built for me 
to better things. Will you ? ” 

And with that simple asking I, all unconsciously, 
tapped deep hidden floods of which I had not 
dreamed. For as I turned, at her silence, and looked 
at her, — 

“ No,” she said, very softly, — very sadly. “ I 
shall never go to Believer again save with one man, 

. . . and it is not likely now that I shall ever go 
with him.” 

“ I am sorry,” I began, and remembered suddenly 
the pregnant references to Believer in her book. 
And we fell silent again. 

Then, perhaps thinking her refusal might have 
hurt me, she said quietly, almost as though thinking 
aloud : 

“ I loved him, you see, with al! my heart and soul. 


194 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


And he, me. ... It was on Believer that he told 
me, and earth was transformed into heaven for me. 
... I had won the heart of the one man in the 
world whose love I had desired more than anything 
on earth. . . . And then . . . after that first 
rapture of our opened hearts ... as we came 
home, he was unusually silent. . . . He knelt 
with me in the chapel in the evening and then — 
there, in my little holy of holies, he broke my 
heart. . . 

She spoke very softly, — very sadly, with a sob in 
her voice. 

“ Don’t recall it,” I begged. “It is hurting you. 
I had no idea ” 

“ It will do me good, because you will under- 
stand,” she said bravely. “. . . The baring of our 
hearts had come upon us almost unconsciously, 
but before he would let me love him he insisted on 
telling me all about himself — his past. It was noble 
of him . . . but it broke my heart. ... I had 
never dreamed of such things in connection with 
him. . . . He had everything — birth, position, a 
great name — and — that ! Oh, it was terrible ! 
I was aghast, — stunned, — blinded, — broken. My 
heart died within me, literally, truly. The physical 
heart went on with its work — in a kind of a way. 
But the heart that is really me felt truly dead. 
I recognised the nobility of spirit which had forced 
him to tell me, but — oh, the horror of it ! . . . And 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


195 


I knew that I loved him the more for his telling. 

. . . The sinner was dearer to me than ever. . . . 
I love all sinners for his sake. . . . But the sin ! 
... I begged him to leave me — ^there — alone with 
God. . . . He was loth to go. He saw how mortally 
it had wounded me. But I insisted, and he went. 
He had your rooms at the inn. . . . And then I 
suppose I must have fainted, though I am not given 
to fainting. Long afterwards I found myself lying 
prone before the altar, with the red lamp shining 
up above like a clot of Christ’s blood. How long 
I had been there I do not know. I was like a broken 
bird, — no song in my heart, no strength in my 
wings, no vision, no voice, just a bundle of bruised 
flesh. I was void of hope, — anxious only to die and 
have done with it all. Life had no longer any 
savour for me. . . . Truly, it seemed to me that my 
life was ebbing out at every pore. I grew weaker 
and weaker. . . . And I was content. . . . Better, 
it seemed to me then, to go quietly out. For I could 
not imagine life without him, yet life with him, in 
the light — the shadow — of this knowledge would 
be agony, because the gulf between us was so wide. 
He was a great sinner, a sinner above most. I had 
thought him on my plane and he was far below me. 
But, indeed, he was a splendid sinner, and I loved 
him more than ever ” 

“ I cannot understand that,” I said amazedly. 

‘ I hate his sin with every drop of pure womanli- 


196 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


ness that is in me. But the sinner I cannot help 
loving still. Does that surprise you ? ’’ 

‘ ‘ I simply cannot understand it , ” I shook my head . 

“ You will sometime. . . . His sin crushed me, 
trod me in the mire. If he had trampled on me 
with his feet I could not have felt more bruised and 
soiled and broken . . . yet I loved him. ... I 
prayed with all my poor heart that God would 
accept my life as a sacrifice for him, — my life for 
his — as a propitiation for his sinfulness. . . 

She fell silent again, and sat gazing sadly at 
Believer which had meant so much to her, and her 
face was white and set like a fair marble statue’s. 

I felt for her hand and kissed it again reverently. 
Words would have been intrusive and meaningless. 
Silent expression of my own deep feeling was all I 
could offer. And presently she continued : 

“ As I lay there before the altar I really believed 
that God had accepted the sacrifice I offered, and 
that I was dying. I grew weaker and weaker. My 
life was oozing out fast. . . . Then suddenly a 
voice spoke to me — in my heart perhaps, but it 
seemed to me an actual living voice, the living voice 
of the living Christ. And He said to me, ‘ My 
child, you suffer for his sin even as I suffered for the 
sin of the whole world. I accept the propitiation 
you offer, but I have work for you to do in the 
world, and you must live. He shall be saved for 
you in heaven. There the remembrance of his sin 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


197 


shall be blotted out, but not the sense of forgiveness. 
I accept your life for him, but it must be life, not 
death. You must go on living.’ The voice was so 
very real, and the promise so wonderful, that life 
seemed suddenly to come back to me. I had some- 
thing to live for. My heart began to beat strong 
and full again. I could feel the new warm life-blood 
rushing through my veins. I got up and went into 
the house, and had a hot bath and a glass of wine, 
and went to bed. And in the morning I took up 
my life again. But it was life on a broken wing, 
and the full white joy of living was gone. Since 
then I have lived only to make atonement for his 
sins and to win him back to better things. I offer 
every prayer, every action, every thought, — yes, 
even every breath and my very heart-beats for him ; 
and I ask God to let all my suffering be for him, and 
if I am in any way to blame, if I in any 'way failed 
him, to punish me after my death in Purgatory, so 
that all my agony in this life may be expiation for 
his sins, not for my own.” 

“You never failed him. Of that I am sure. . . . 
You have done mighty good in the world. You have 
saved many by your prayers, I do not doubt. You 
certainly saved me.” 

“ Yes. . . . Thank God for that ! He has done 
that with me before. I have prayed for one thing 
and He has given me another. Sometime — when 
He sees it well — He will give me that other also.” 


198 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“You have prayed for me, I know. I have felt it.’’ 

“ Oh, I have. I asked Him to give you to me as 
a pledge of His promise about the other. And He 
has done, you see. He never neglects, and He never 
forgets.” 

“ And that other ? — now ? Is he stiU . . . 

wounding you ? ” 

She did not answer at once. I feared I had asked 
too much — that the wound was still too sore. 

But presently she said, in a sadder voice than I 
had ever heard from her, “ I have no means of 
knowing. We are at grievous odds. For a year and 
more he has answered none of my letters, nor have 
I had any word from him — not directly from him. 
I heard he was spreading some ill report about 


“ Good God ! But that’s too monstrous ! The 

man must be a perfect brute ” 

“ Oh don’t ! ” she said quickly, laying a hand on 
my arm. “ You hurt me.” 

“ I’m sorry ; but, all the same ” 

“You see, I love him dearly still — in spite of it 
all. And this has nearly broken my heart again. 
Something, or someone, has come between us. I 
do not know what. But the result is this dead wall 
of silence which I cannot penetrate.” 

“ If you will tell me who he is I’ll promise you to 
get through it and tell him anything you like.” 

“ I am sure you would do that for me. . . . But 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


199 


I cannot tell you who he is. You see, it is not just 
my secret. If his past life became known he would 
be outcast. He would lose everything. Sometimes 
I have wondered if that might not be God’s best 
for him. It is when we are broken that we come 
nearest to Him. ... I do not know. But I desire 
only his good. In my short sight I would not have 
any harm come to him.” 

‘‘ And in spite of all he has done, you still care 
for him ? ” 

“ Care for him ? — I love him with every fibre of 
my heart, with every drop of my blood.” 

“ That is beyond me,” I said, shaking my head. 
‘‘You are very wonderful ” 

“ I see nothing wonderful in it. I love him. That 
is all.” 

“ In spite of the way he has acted ! That is the 
wonderful thing to me. I have never been in love 
myself, but I don’t think I could love anyone who 
made no return. And to love on even when the 

return is an ill one ! ” I shook my head. It 

was, as I said, quite beyond me. 

“You know nothing about it, — as you confess. 
Real love loves and looks for no return ; — Cloves 
because it cannot help itseH. If your idea of love 
were the right one it would be a poor look-out for us 
all.” 

“ How do you mean ? ” 

“ If God only loved those who made Him proper 


200 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


return, what would become of us all ? That is the 
very highest love of course. But the essence of all 
true love is that it loves on and on in spite of neglect 
or even of rebuffs, and expects nothing in return. 
I had an old friend who lived — all alone, as you 
would have said, — in a little stone hut away in the 
very heart of the Moor, and died there at last, 
without a soul to close his eyes ” 

“ Preacher John ! ” 

“ Yes — I was forgetting you had met him in my 
book. Well, — that was his Credo, — unceasing love 
without return. ‘ Love, dost thou ever fail ? ’ was 
one of his sayings. And ‘ Love on ! Love on ! 
Love on ! * . . . Love that needs return is only a 
higher form of cupboard-love. . . . ‘ Hoping ever, 
failing never ; though deceived, believing still.’ 
That is true love. 

‘ And never, never, never Love complains 
That its sweet wealth is too much drawn upon ; 

But gives, and gives, and gives till life is gone. 

And then, through all Eternity, gives on and on.* ” 

“ Perhaps sometime I shall come to understand 
even that. You are opening new doors and windows 
to my soul all round.” 

“I am glad,” she said warmly. “You have 
starved all your life. The royal feast is spread for 
you. You have only to go in and eat. . . . And 
what an appetite you’ll have after that long fast ! ” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


201 


And in her joy at thought of what lay before me 
— thanks to her good help ! — she brightened up 
somewhat, and cast her own sorrows behind her as 
far as could be, and was her own sweet self again. 

But this grievous thing she had told me remained 
with me, and weighed upon me, and I thought much 
upon it, then and thereafter. 


14 . 


^OME day, some enquiring archseologist, delving 
^ about Dream Tor, may come upon a rusted 
Browning pistol, buried deep under the turf of the 
eastern slope, and from it may formulate new 
theories as to the weapons used by the original 
inhabitants of Dartmoor. 

We buried it there one day. My Lady and I, 
with due ceremony, as proof and token of my 
redemption. And when I had carefully refitted the 
sod and stamped it down, she knelt on the place 
and said a prayer of thanksgiving, and then crossed 
herself and was happy for the rest of the day. 

It was very marvellous to me, knowing now what 
a corroding sorrow she carried in her heart, that she 
could find any joy in life whatever. But joyousness, 
so far as she could compass it, was of the very essence 
of her Credo of love, and as yet I had not discovered 
— and could barely imagine — any bounds to the 
strength and exercise of her will as regards herself. 

That one occasion on Dream Tor, when, in the 
exaltation of the moment, she showed me a little 
bit of her heart and the great sorrow of her life, was 
the only glimpse I had had of that carefuUy-sub- 
202 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


203 


jected side of her. At all other times she was the 
calm, seK-possessed, graciously sympathetic Lady 
of the Book, who accorded my intrusive stranger- 
self so kindly a welcome that first evening. 

And, from watching her often at her prayers in 
her little white chapel, I came to understand, to 
some extent at all events, the heights and depths 
and strength of the soul that shone out of the frank 
gray eyes. And I came to appreciate, if as yet I 
did not very fully comprehend it all, the source 
from which her extraordinary power was drawn. 

Born and bred as I had been, it was natural for 
me, I suppose, to feel considerable doubt as to the 
practices and beliefs of the Roman Church. Indeed 
I might be said to have imbibed an aversion for it 
with my mother’s milk. 

But, sitting there, day after day, — ^for when the 
days were bad, or no special outing was possible, 
I got into the way of betaking myself and my work 
to the little chapel as a matter of course, since there 
one could sit and think as nowhere else ; — and 
watching the fervour and intensity of My Lady’s 
devotions, my views on all such matters underwent 
very radical change. And the change — from narrow- 
ness and nothing — could not but be for the better. 

I wrote much of these notes in that little white 
House of Prayer, and I remember, the first time she 
caught me at work there, I was doubtful if it would 
be pleasing to her. But only for the moment. 


204 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


When she rose and turned to me I saw by the smile 
on her face that it was all right. 

“ That is good,” she said. “ The better the place, 
the better the work ! I often bring my own work 
here — even my darning. And I believe I darn better 
here than anywhere else. And as each of my books 
comes out I bring it here to show it to Him, and to 
My Lady, and my dear S. Michael. They all know 
and love me, and are interested in all I do. They 
enjoy it, I’m sure, as well as I do. And I bring my 
dearest letters ; and always on my birthday all my 
presents to show to them and thank them for them. 
Don’t you think they like it ? ” she smiled chal- 
lengingly. 

“ Whoever helps you — or has been helped by you 
— must rejoice in all you do. I certainly find the 
white peace . . . and the prayerful atmosphere 
very comforting.” 

“ The more you come to understand, the more 
so you will find it. A man once said to me here that 
I seemed to make a trade of prayer. I would have 
said profession myself. But he meant well and he 
spoke truly. I believe implicitly in prayer, and 
nobody in this world ever had better reason. I talk 
to God about everything in my life, and in the lives 
of my friends . . . and others. . . . We are on the 
very best of terms. I have even been foolishly angry 
with Him and told Him what I thought about Him, 
and sometimes I joke with Him,” — she saw and 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


205 


enjoyed the amazement in my face, and added, 
‘‘ You see, I feel towards Him just as I would 
towards my own father if he were alive. And I 
treat Him just the same. And He loves it.” 

“ I’m sure He must,” I said, but none the less I 
marvelled — at my own narrowness of outlook in 
such matters and at her amazing breadth and faith. 

After that day on Dream Tor she had set herself 
at once to get me to work, — ^lest, as she put it, the 
seven devils should find an empty house and come 
in and occupy it, and I should find myself ‘ On the 
Embankment ’ again. 

That phrase ‘ On the Embankment ’ — derived no 
doubt from her work among the outcasts in London 
— was often on her lips. It expressed volumes, and 
she had a profound belief that no writer ever did 
his best work until he had been ‘ on the Embank- 
ment,’ — that until he had sounded the depths he 
could neither appreciate nor attain to the heights. 

‘ To come in off the Embankment ’ was, to her, 
to turn from a broken and troubled past to brighter 
and better and more hopeful things. Her prayers, 
and her own conscious and unconscious infiuence, 
had delivered me from worse even than the Em- 
bankment, — ^from certain death on the gallows — 
and had set my feet on climbing-paths. 

She was frankly proud of, and fittingly grateful 
for, this good work she had been permitted to do, 
and she regarded me, quite naturally, as exceptional 


206 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


treasure-trove for herself and the Higher Powers 
whose handmaid she was. 

There was a good deal of the motherly — of what 
I imagine the Virgin-Motherly feeling might be — in 
her attitude towards me, I know, though in actual 
years I was somewhat her senior. But in knowledge 
and experience of things spiritual I was indeed 
hardly yet born. 

As to my feeling for her I hesitate at the attempt 
to express it. None but a man who had gone through 
experiences as soul-racking as I had could possibly 
fathom it to the full. No woman could, for no 
woman can feel quite towards another woman, not 
even towards the very best of women, as a man 
could, — as I did. 

To say that at any moment I would have given my 
life, joyfully and unhesitatingly, to save her from 
reproach or harm is merest platitude. I worshipped 
her, reverently, even as she worshipped her Higher 
Powers, but with far less fearlessness and intimacy 
of approach. She was as sacred to me as were to 
her the Divine Elements in the little white silk- 
curtained Tabernacle on the altar in her tiny House 
of Prayer. 

Twice I was permitted, from my far-corner seat 
on the ‘ externe’s ’ back bench, to hear her answering 
the celebrant, robed in her virginal white veil and 
an aura of fervent spiritual enthusiasm which stirred 
me profoundly. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


207 


She was, I believe, — and is — the only woman per- 
mitted to safeguard the Blessed Sacrament, single- 
handed and unaided. And she prized that privilege 
more than life itseK. I am quite sure she would have 
chosen to die rather than lose the high and unique 
position she held, as the Lady of the Eucharist, the 
Lady of the Lamp. 

And that it was that had wounded her so mortally 
in the slanders spread about her by the man she 
loved so dearly. They endangered the position 
which was more than her life to her, for such privi- 
leges rested on her stainless reputation. But, 
concerning that she told me more later. 

One night she came to her prayers in the little 
chapel dressed in the Madonna-blue gown with 
much lace about it, as on that second night. And it 
seemed to me that her devotions were longer and 
even more fervent than usual. When at last she 
rose and turned and spoke to me, she asked : 

“ You remember dear old Father Dominic, whom 
you met in Switzerland ? ” 

“ Very well.” 

“ I have just received news of his death.” 

“ I am sorry. He was a good old man, I’m 
sure.” 

“ I am glad, as glad almost as he is. I have been 
rejoicing with him. And yet I am sad at my own 
loss in him. I shall miss him terribly. He was the 
very best friend I ever had. He is — he was — ^the 


208 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


only man who knew the whole of the matter between 
myself and Lancelot ’’ 

(“I think of him as Lancelot,” she had said to 
me one day, when speaking of that other. ‘‘ I had 
believed him Galahad and he proved to be but the 
other.” And it was as Lancelot that she always 
referred to him.) 

“ You see,” she continued, “ when I heard of the 
evil reports he was spreading about me, I had to do 
something. He was attacking my reputation, and 
upon that my whole life here depends. I am not 
only a private individual. I have an official position 
in my Church. I owe the preservation of my fair 
name as a duty to my ecclesiastical superiors. For 
my own sake, I should have done nothing. For 
their sake, honour demanded it. But you can 
imagine — no, you cannot, because you cannot 
possibly understand my love for him still. And — to 
have to lay bare my heart, and the whole of that 
sad matter, even to my dear Father Dominic — oh, 
it was grievous to me beyond the telling ! And 
Father Dominic deemed it advisable to take legal 
action up to a certain point. I hoped that if he and 
thejdawyer saw Lancelot, and reasoned with him, 
and showed him the view they, as outsiders, took of 
it all, it might suffice. But it did not, and I am 
afraid it all resulted only in estranging us still more. 
But his slanders ceased, and it is more than a year 
now since I heard anything of him except through 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


209 


the papers. And now my dear Father Dominic is 
gone and I feel bereft.” 

“ And you still feel as you did towards the 
other ? ” I asked ; for, though I was beginning to 
get some understanding of such vast possibilities, 
through my own feeling towards herself, this yet 
transcended by much the heights and depths of my 
slow attainment. 

“ Of course ! I do not change. I shall love him 
till we both die — and better still after, for then we 
shall both understand.” 

I shook my head. I have tried my best, but I 
cannot help looking on it as a grievous waste ” 

“ Waste ! ” she caught me up. “ Waste ! There 
is no such thing as waste in love. Love grows on 
giving. Oh, you have much to learn, Ian Carril.” 

“ I’m afraid I have. You see, until now I have 
had so little opportunity ” 

“ No, you poor thing ! . . . But you are learn- 
ing.” 

‘‘ Yes, I am learning — more than I ever thought 
to know.” 

And so — ^to say that I was very deeply in love 
with her myself is merest fustian. I had, as I have 
said, come to regard her with something at all events 
of that absolute love and reverence and devotion 
which she herself bore towards her Higher Powers. 

All the stifled capacities for loving denied me by 
my lost years sprang now to fullest growth, with all 

p 


210 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

the fire of those lost years compressed and ablaze 
in them. 

I think she must have known it, though I did my 
best to keep it hidden in my heart. But she was 
a keen observer and very little escaped her. The 
full of it, however, she will know when she reads 
these notes, and it is joy to my heart to set it forth 
here as plainly as it is possible for me to do. 

But my love for her was heights above the feeling 
— even the most impassioned — ^that commonly goes 
by that name. For I could expect, and looked for, 
no return whatever in kind. Her heart, I knew, 
was given entirely to this man who valued it as less 
than nothing ; — amazing thought ! And — she had 
repaid me in advance for my uttermost devotion 
by lifting me out of hell when I had wellnigh slipped 
in for ever. 

It was through this mighty white fire of my 
passionate devotion to her that I came by degrees 
to apprehend — dimly at first, but more and more 
clearly once the spark was lighted — something of 
the wonder of the love of God ; — through that, and 
the observation of her at her prayers, and the know- 
ledge of the implicit confidence . with which she 
offered them, and of her unceasing and unchanging 
love for the man who had so wounded her. 

All these wrought mightily in me. They broke 
down and cast out for ever that unsatisfying crust 
of, at best, non-denial of better things which had 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 211 

been all I could claim even before my imprison- 
ment. 

While in prison, as you know, I fought with all 
my might against every possible tendency to good 
lest it should weaken my resolve for evil. But now 
— by reason of my great love for her, and her still 
greater love for Lancelot, I came to glimpse the 
love of God Himself. 

If I could so love— to the very last possibility of 
self-sacrifice ; if she could so love, in equal degree 
one who scorned and would have none of her, and 
could yet retain her undying faith ; — ^yes, I was 
forced to the consideration of what God’s love for 
man might be. And finally I came to the realisation 
of what it was. 

Not by any means for the first time, I am sure, 
human love had led to the divine. 

She knew all that was working in me, and rejoiced 
greatly at it. But never in any slightest way did 
she attempt to lead me into her own communion. 
Doubtless she would have rejoiced still more had I 
so decided, but it was enough for her that I had come 
in off the Embankment to the inner light and warmth 
of home. And the knowledge that it was so, and 
that it was her hand that had led me, added to her 
happiness, I know. 


16. 


IRCUMSTANCED as I was, it mattered little 



to me where I lived, except that to me — as 
was surely but natural — ^there was no place in the 
world to be compared with Graystone. 

Thanks to my poor Honor, and Denver’s careful 
stewardship, I was fairly well off. I had £700 a year 
from sound investments. I did not even need to 
write unless I chose to do so. But choose I did — and 
so did My Lady for me. 

Greater comfort than I found at the little inn I 
could not possibly have had. The landlord had 
evidently been a gentleman’s gentleman. He de- 
lighted in valeting me, and indeed fathered me like 
a prodigal son. 

Often, as I lay in bed in the morning, — when he 
came in to take away my things to brush, and 
brought them back immaculately folded, and turned 
my socks half inside out ready to put on, and 
arranged all my other garments in exactly the right 
order, and then cheerfully announced that my bath 
was ready, — smiled inwardly at thought of what 
his face would be like if he knew that the recipient 
of all these kindly attentions had had, not so very 


212 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


213 


long ago, to jump up at sound of the prison beU 
and scrub out his own cell in Dartmoor Prison. 

After all, it might not have altered him, unless in 
the direction of still greater attention to make up 
for past discomforts, for he was a genuinely gentle- 
manly man, and he never had a prompter paying 
guest, and we were on the best of terms. 

So, week after week, I stayed on there, and had no 
desire to go further and fare worse. 

My many wanderings and varied experience of 
men and places had given me matter enough to draw 
upon ; and expression, such as it was, I delighted in. 
My difficulty was to settle on what to do first. And 
therein My Lady’s acumen was of service. We 
settled the lines of a story, and I started once more 
— after the lapse of nine years — on my first book. 
It was a very different one from the other. 

And My Lady, too, rejoiced in this visible outcome 
of her good work and ever gave me heartiest cheer 
and encouragement. 

Her own books brought her an enormous corre- 
spondence. Men and women all over the world 
seemed to find in them thoughts and suggestions 
which led them to confide in the writer and ask her 
advice and assistance. They were mostly troubled 
men and women, and none, I knew, ever went 
empty away. 

Occasionally, religiously suppressing names and 
places, she would consult me on points about which 


214 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


I might supposably know more than herself. And 
I was not infrequently astonished at the openness 
with which these burden-bearers would disclose 
their troubles to an entire stranger, simply because 
some thought or word in one or other of her books 
led them to — as it turned out — a well-founded 
confidence in her sympathy and wisdom. 

It gave me a new and larger belief in the dignity 
and importance of the profession of letters, and an 
insight into the loneliness of circumstance which 
could prompt such strange yearning after outside 
assistance in the solution of life’s knotty problems. 

This wide correspondence, of which she was the 
gracious centre, together with her multitudinous 
household duties, might well have occupied all her 
time, one would have thought, and left her none for 
her own literary work. 

But she was an amazingly quick worker. She 
wrote just as she spoke, eloquently and never at a 
loss for just the right word. When I read her books 
it was as though I listened to her talking — but that 
I missed the fiuty tones which were a delight to listen 
to. And she, for her part, could not understand, 
except sympathetically and always with amuse- 
ment, the considered plodding which was my part 
as a writer. 

I saw her pretty nearly every day ; if not during 
the day, then in the evening, when I slipped into 
the chapel just before her stated hour for prayer. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


215 


And many a heartfelt prayer I prayed there 
myself, in the rays of the little red lamp, in gratitude 
for the changed outlook my coming there had 
brought me. And when she came noiselessly in 
and knelt in her own place, I thanked God again for 
all she had done for me, and joined my crude 
petitions to hers for whatsoever things she might 
be asking. 

It was a joy and an inspiration simply to watch 
her, and I do not think I ever once missed her 
evening hour. 

When the nights were wet and the lane muddy 
she would, on rising, humorously accuse me of 
soiling her white sanctuary, but her strictures were 
so smilingly given that they did not hurt nor ever 
keep me from offending again. 

Three solid months of steady toil, however, saw 
my book finished, and I considered that very quick 
work. But I had been full of my subject and it had 
run its course joyously. My Lady, when she read 
it, was good enough to express the opinion that it 
was not bad for a beginner and might even sell. 
“ One never knows,” she said hopefully. 

I went up to London with it, carrying letters from 
herself to one or two of her OAvn publishers, and with 
that assistance I got the matter arranged with no 
great difficulty. 

It was atrocious weather, and I also got a chill 
which resulted in a severe attack of influenza, which 


216 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


laid me up for many weeks. Possibly it was the 
sudden change from the sweet keen air of the Moor 
to the germ -laden London streets that bowled me 
out. 

I longed to be back in the care of my good old 
landlord of the inn at Graystone. To have lain 
there, looking out on the huge sprawling bulk of 
Hamildown, even though he were draped with rain- 
clouds and mist, would have been a vastly different 
thing from my melancholy musings on the roofs and 
chimney-pots of the British Museum, and would 
have tended to speedier convalescence. 

I had taken a room in a semi-private hotel in 
Great Russell Street, and they were as kind to the 
sick stranger as their many preoccupations per- 
mitted ; but I longed for Dartmoor and the homely 
kindliness of Devonshire hearts and the lilt of the 
Devon tongue. 

Denver came in now and again to see me after 
business hours, and he was my only visitor. 

I wrote often to My Lady, and she, amid all her 
other more exigent duties, never failed to reply. 
Her letters were veritable gleams of Dartmoor sun- 
shine and breaths of Dartmoor air. They were 
compact of her own hopeful cheer and ministered 
mightily to me. 

And as I lay thinking much of all she had done 
for me, and that what-might-have-been if she had 
not, there came to me an overpowering craving to 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


217 


serve her even as she had served me. She had 
drawn me out of the pit. Could I not do as much 
for her ? She had set my feet on the ladder of Hope. 
Could I not possibly set hers on the Mount of Joy ? 

Then, one day, I got from her a letter quivering 
with anticipation, — joy, hope, and a little fear were 
all apparent in it to me. 

She told me her duties called her for a day or two 
to one of the western cities, and she had heard that 
Lancelot was almost certain to be there at the same 
time, and indeed in the same circles. Their paths 
were sure to cross, and she intended to make an 
opportunity for a personal plea for better under- 
standing and possible reconciliation. 

She was preparing herself for what could not but 
be a very trying ordeal, by long hours of prayer and 
meditation in her little chapel, and, though she 
could not but dread the thought of it somewhat, she 
was still looking forward to the meeting with eager 
hopefulness. 

Her letter drove my temperature up. I was in 
fact in a fever of anxiety. 

I knew all that this must mean to her. I dreaded 
to think what it might mean if that other still 
proved obdurate. 

But could any man resist My Lady’s pleading ? 
Surely it would take a heart of adamant to hold out 
against the appeal of those wistful gray eyes and all 
that dwelt behind them. 


218 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


If I had only known the man and what manner 
of man he was in other matters ! If only I had even 
seen him, or even his portrait, so that I might be 
able to judge of him for myself ! 

On the spur of that I wrote feverishly to My Lady, 
asking her if she would not so far unlock her secret, 
which she guarded so jealously for his sake, as to 
send me his portrait at least, for the easement of 
my mind. And I pledged myself that no other 
should see it, and that if I recognised it that know- 
ledge should be buried in my own heart. 

I reminded her that I had some skill in physiog- 
nomy. I hoped to find in his face some auspice of 
hope for them both. 

She had left Graystone, however, before my letter 
reached her, and I lay awaiting her further news in 
greatest anxiety. 

Three days later her letter came, and it racked 
my heart for her, for in the broken sentences I could 
read all that she had not permitted herself to say. 
It is too sacred to reproduce in its entirety. She 
told me briefly that they had met — in public first, 
and his perfect bearing towards her had misled her 
to hope. Then she had approached him in private 
and he had repelled her with scorn and contempt. 
She ended, — ‘‘ — ^My heart bleeds with this new 
anguish. I feel crushed and broken and trampled 
in the mire again. And I have done nothing to 
deserve it — nothing. Oh, how could he ? — how 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 219 

could he ? . . . But I love him still. Yes, I love 
him, and will do though I die.” 

I was filled, as I read, with such a fury of indigna- 
tion against that man that Denver, who happened 
to look in on me in the evening, was startled by the 
state I had got into. 

It relieved his anxiety somewhat to learn that 
my righteous anger was not this time on my own 
account, but he told me plainly that, no matter 
why or for whom, I was in no condition to permit 
myself any such outbursts, that no doctor would be 
responsible for so headstrong and self-willed a 
patient, and that a recurrence, in my lowered con- 
dition, might have serious consequences. 

I promised to curb myself to the best of my power. 
It would have been some relief to discuss the matter 
with him, for his cool, clear judgment rarely failed 
to discover some hope of improvement in the very 
worst extremities. 

But this was too sacred and intimate a matter, 
and I doubt if even his wide experience could have 
suggested any remedy. A broken heart is beyond 
man’s healing. But that I knew so well what deep 
hidden springs and vast high resources My Lady 
had to draw upon, I should have been in despair on 
her account. 

The only spark of comfort I found in the whole 
matter was that her letter was dated from Heysham. 
She was at all events back among her own happy 


220 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


surroundings, and would be seeking consolation and 
peace in her own little sanctuary where she had 
never so far failed to find them. 

That certainty calmed me somewhat. I did my 
best to keep my thoughts off the man who could 
treat her so, and to fix them rather on that wonder- 
ful great love of hers which lived on in spite of every 
ill-treatment. And that sweet thought of her lifted 
me somewhat out of myself, and gave me fresh 
vision of the still Greater Love on which her own 
was based. 

I could not bring myself to believe that so deep 
and fervent an emotion would be permitted to spend 
itself in vain. Sooner or later that other, on whom 
she lavished it so unstintedly, would awake to an 
understanding of it, — then, if I knew anything of 
man, it would be his heart that would break at 
thought of all the anguish he had caused her. 

From all this, the desire to learn what manner of 
man he was became overpowering in me. He was 
presumably human, though his conduct was devilish. 
More than ever I desired to see him and study him. 
For it was in my heart that by so doing I might 
possibly arrive at some way of helping them both. 

Never once, up to this time, I am thankful to say, 
had it entered my head that if the breach between 
them became permanent, she might, when the 
wound had had time to heal, turn to myself. And 
yet the thought would have been natural enough. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


221 


For she knew all my heart concerning her and she 
trusted me wholly. 

My only desire was for her fullest happiness, and 
to that I bent such energy as was left me. 

I replied to her letter as best I could. It was very 
inadequate. But she would read between the lines 
and understand. And again I urged her to send me 
some portrait that I might form my own judgment 
of the man. 

And, in the desolation and upsetting of her heart, 
she did so. 

Two days later came a registered packet from her, 
and when I had eagerly torn it open I found inside 
the box a small miniature, beautifully finished, life- 
like. 

And when I looked — my heart kicked so violently 
that it shook my very senses, and then it seemed to 
stop and lose many beats, and the miniature dropped 
from my still-weak fingers on to the coverlet. 

It was the face of the man whose life I had been 
craving all these years, until God and My Lady 
delivered him from me ; — the man who had broken 
my poor Honor and cast her to the void ; — and this 
was the man — amazing thought ! — whom My Lady 
loved with all her pure soul, and would do though 
she died ! 

It took me a long, long time to recover any 
reasonableness of connected thought about it all. 
It seemed altogether too utterly monstrous, — of 


222 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


contrivance too diabolical for mere human device, 
— one of those tangles of fate in which the gods of 
old loved to disport themselves with mortals as 
their helpless pawns. 

It was long before I could bring myself to look 
again at that hated face. But I strung myself to 
it at last and examined it carefully. 

And in spite of myself, and my detestation of the 
man, and my now added knowledge of his actual 
character — of which the world which honoured him 
knew nothing, — I had to confess to myself that it 
was a fine face, — well-featured, strong, commanding, 
and full of highest intelligence, — the face of a man 
born to make a mark in the world. The expression 
too, as portrayed by the artist, was distinctly 
pleasing, or at all events conveyed, in some subtle 
fashion, the suggestion that he could when he chose 
be very winning, possibly fascinating. It was 
difficult, impossible almost, to reconcile it all with 
the soul of dust and ashes and all uncleanness that 
dwelt within. 

I studied it long, stirring myself to still intenser 
scrutiny by saying to myself at times, — “ This is 
the man I tried to kill ! . . . This is the man My 
Lady loves, and would love though he slew 
her ! ” 

And ever my amazement grew, — at the whole 
untoward matter, — at the inexplicable divergence 
between presentment and fact, — and at the wonder 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 223 

of that great love which My Lady bore for one so 
unworthy of her. 

(Only when she reads this — if ever she does — will 
she know all the facts of the matter. She had suffered 
enough and I could not add to her sorrow by one 
word against the man she honoured with her love. 
And so I never told her. Now, it does not matter.) 


16 . 


I RETURNED the miniature in due course with 
my grateful thanks, but no more than casual 
comment on the strength and intelligence and 
attractiveness of the face. Whether My Lady 
suspected me of concealing my true thought, or 
set me down as but a superficial physiognomist, I 
could not say. In her letters she never referred to 
the matter. 

But as I lay, limp and spent with the fever, it was 
borne in upon me that here, right to my hand, lay 
my next work in life, — ^to see this man, to force him 
to listen, and to make clear to him, in such way that 
he could never forget it, the nobility of My Lady’s 
devoted love for him, and the monstrous wrong he 
had done in ever admitting one shadow of doubt 
concerning her into his dark mind. 

I had not known he was home, for since I re- 
nounced the idea of killing him I had done my best 
to drop him completely out of my mind. 

But now he had once more become the object 
of primal interest to me. I did my best to follow 
his movements in the daily papers and laid my plans 
again for getting at him. Now — for his possible 
224 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


225 


salvation. Before, it had always been for his 
destruction. 

As I lay, I tried to think it all out, — all I would 
do and say when the opportunity came, and I passed 
the long slow hours conning it all as a barrister 
prepares his brief, to drive conviction home with a 
force that should be irresistible. 

I saw plainly enough that direct approach to him, 
such as I had successfully made before, would be 
inadvisable if not impossible. For, if I should be 
recognised before I reached him, my plans would 
simply land me in prison once more, and my reasons 
for seeking him would be laughed to scorn. 

It must obviously be a case of trusting to Provi- 
dence to provide the opportunity. And my faith 
in Providence had grown through the watching of 
My Lady at her prayers. 

Surely, I said to myself, if ever man was justified 
in hoping for the assistance of the Higher Powers, 
I should be in this matter. For it was not my own 
good I sought, but My Lady’s. 

And then, whenever I got that far, would come 
the inevitable and insistent question, — Will this 
make for her lasting good and happiness ? . . . 
Can the winning of such a man be fit crown for her 
fair life ? 

And that tormented me. For to my own heart — 
and still more to my intelligence — that issue com- 
mended itself not at all. 

Q 


226 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


If ever woman deserved the very best that life 
could give her, that, and not one iota less than that, 
was My Lady’s rightful due. 

And was this man the very best ? ... So very 
much the reverse was he that I, not unreasonably, 
began to waver and doubt. 

We mortals are purblind at best. We cannot 
even see the complete ends of our own noses. And 
how should we dare to attempt the direction of lives 
— our own or others’ ? Would it not be wisest and 
safest to leave it to the All- Wise up above ? By 
working on my own short-sighted lines, even with 
the most unselfish ends in view, might I not, after 
all, be but precipitating catastrophe ? 

It had, all along, been difficult for me to appreciate 
properly — or perhaps I should say to understand 
properly — ^My Lady’s unchanging, unwearying love 
for so ignoble a soul, and I do not think that in that 
I had been biassed by any personal considerations. 

But now, with my added knowledge of that 
other man’s personality and true character, and 
the certainty in my own mind that such as he could 
never by any possibility be fit mate for such an 
one as My Lady, — being myself but human, I 
began to have fleeting visions and to dream im- 
possible dreams, through which My Lady floated 
like a fair white saint with starry eyes, and at times 
even came down to earth and was a very woman, — 
The One Woman in the world. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


227 


But all such jewelled fancies, though they might 
dance before me in the night, vanished with the 
light of day. Sober sense told me that crown such 
as that was not for broken life such as mine, and I 
rigorously ruled such vain imaginings out of my 
book of life. 

But as I lay, with nothing to do but think — and 
brood over the whole matter, in the light of this 
later revelation of the character of the man to whom 
her heart had been given, by whom it had been so 
grievously wounded, doubts and hopes crowded 
thick upon me. 

Happiness, I assured myseK, could not possibly 
come to her through such a man, — impossible ! 
impossible ! 

Can Light wed with Darkness ? — Good with 
Evil ? — ^Purity with Sin ? The thought revolted me. 

It was her happiness I desired above every other 
thing, and this could not possibly make for it. She 
would only make shipwreck of her life. How could 
I, desiring for her the best, assist her to what I 
believed the worst ? 

I could not, and — finally — after long wrestling 
with the matter — I would not. 

When at last, through whirling clouds of doubt, 
I came to that decision, I began to mend rapidly. 
For back of all my thinking, unadmitted but none 
the less there and charged with life, glimmered the 
dreams and visions that I had done my best to 


228 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


make an end of. Unconsciously they set new hope 
in my heart, and that, reacting on my body, made 
for healing. 

My Lady, on hearing of my condition, wrote 
regularly two or three times a week. Her letters 
were as pearls of great price to me and I read them 
almost to rags. 

She wrote always cheerfully — for my enliven- 
ment, I quite understood, since she knew so well, 
from her own experiences, the despondency of 
sickness, whether of heart or body, among strangers. 
But I knew her too well to suppose that her own 
great sorrow was in any way abated. She would 
half live her life in the shadow of it until she died — 
unless . . . 

And it seemed a marvellous pity that so fair a 
life should droop on till its end. 

Then, for further diversion, the proofs of my book 
began coming in, and never were proofs so carefully 
read, and re-read, and read again. I pondered even 
commas to improvident lengths. I could hardly 
bear to let the proofs go back. 

But they cheered me greatly. I had put good work 
into the book and thought well of it even in manu- 
script. Now, in actual type, it seemed to me better 
still, even though I was quite aware that judgment 
of one’s own work is always fallible and generally 
useless and misleading. I began to plume myself 
on achievement. The future took on a rosier hue. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


229 


Out of my glimmering dreams and visions I began 
to build castles-in-the-air. 

She had been gracious to me beyond the telling. 
She had found me in my bitter need. She had taken 
pity on me. And pity is akin to love. She had saved 
my soul alive. She had shown herself an angel of 
goodness. 

She had by this time surely appraised that other 
at his true worth. Her eyes must undoubtedly be 
opened to his utter inadequacy at last. If he had 
turned to her — soiled and stained though he was 
. . . But he flouted and scorned her. He broke 
her heart afresh. And, though she vowed she loved 
him still and would do till she died — it was not 
credible, it was not possible, for love to survive 
under such conditions. 

So it seemed to me. 

And for myself. — She knew the worst there was 
to know. And the best, thanks solely to her, lay 
on in front. She loved sinners — or she could not 
have gone on loving that other when her eyes had 
been opened to his past. She knew that I loved her 
— with hope of no return ... till now. Might not 
her heart, when it recovered its health, turn from 
the hopeless to one who had dared to hope ? It would 
surely be but natural and womanly if it did. 

So I permitted myself at last to think — almost 
to hope. 

And I dreamed my jewelled dreams again, and 


230 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


joyed in my starry visions, and builded my castles- 
in-the-air to my heart’s delight. 

You see,— I knew so little of woman, and so much 
less of My Lady. 

It all helped me back to health, however, and in 
the fulness of time I saw my book actually published 
and on sale. 

I haunted the windows of bookshops and cursed 
them when it was not on view, and so my curses 
were many. 

I actually saw one man buy it at a bookstall, and 
could barely refrain from clapping him on the back. 
Instead, I had the brilliant idea of demanding a copy 
for myself which, as I expected, the clerk was unable 
to produce. At which I expressed extreme surprise, 
and flattered myself that I had thereby possibly 
created, if not a demand, at all events a possible 
supply. 

In the ardour of success I tried that at other 
stalls, and not infrequently got caught out. On 
such occasions I devised the plan of asking for a 
second copy and grumbling when it was not. 

I did all a father could do for his first-born, and 
accumulated quite a stock of my bantlings, which 
I sent by Carter -Paterson to Johnstone and begged 
him to bestow where they would do me most 
service. 

He himself, good fellow that he was, was enthu- 
siastic about the book, and he spread it round to 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


231 


such good purpose, and accompanied it with such 
energetic recommendation, that it began to be 
talked about, and my publishers politely begged 
me to call for the purpose of discussing future 
business. AU of which was extremely satisfactory. 

. . . And, as soon as I had seen to all this, I packed 
up my traps and returned to Dartmoor for the third 
time. 

The first time I had gone as a convict, cursing 
myself as a bungler ; cursing the man on whose 
account I was there ; cursing life generally for its 
scurvy treatment. 

The second time I had gone — as a free man in- 
deed, yet bound in shackles of my own perverse 
contriving more surely than any poor wretch in the 
Prison. 

And now, by the grace of God, and the wisdom 
and patience and goodness of My Lady, I was re- 
turning again a free man in fullest truth, freed not 
only from the fetters of the past, but from the 
spirit that had, of its own evil will, insisted on 
wearing them. And, moreover, filled with hopes 
for the future which though only as yet whispering 
in my heart were still most potent factors in my 
life. 

Never had I enjoyed a railway journey in my life 
as I did that one. Everything combined to make 
every detail of it sheerest delight. 

At Paddington I saw six of my books in a row on 


232 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 
the bookstall, with a nice bold label, “ Ian Carril’s 
Latest. — The Book of The Day.’’ More truthfully 
they might, I thought, have made it, — “ Ian 
Carrie’s First. — A Book for All Time.” But one 
does not cavil at the gifts of the gods, and I let it 
go at that. For six in a row on a bookstall speaks 
volumes for any book. 

In the dining-car I saw a lady reading it between 
the courses. I boldly produced my own copy. The 
car seemed suddenly full of my book. 

Between Newton Abbot and Bovey I was like a 
child, first at one window, than at the other, to 
pick up the first glimpses of the distant Moor ; and 
the sight of Rippon and Hey set my heart bounding 
joyfully. 

I had wired young Wright, of the ‘ Dolphin ’ at 
Bovey, to meet me with his car, and after a word of 
greeting we were whirling through the still shady 
lanes, though here and there bare branches were 
beginning to show. Then we were climbing up and 
up, with the eastern lowlands on the left glimmering 
in an opalescent haze, till at last the strong sweet 
air of the Moor came at me like a breath of new life, 
and I felt like shouting aloud for joy. 

Young Wright would have entertained me with 
his genial conversation. But I answered haphazard, 
I fear, for my heart and my thoughts made better 
speed even than his 18-horse-power De Dion-Bouton, 
and had already topped the ridges and were safe 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


233 


home once more in the peace and sanctity of My 
Lady’s little House of Prayer. 

And now we were out on the open Moor-road, and 
here were Hey, and Saddle, and Rippon, the bold 
bluff sentinels of the Moor, all tendering mighty 
welcomes. And now we were grinding on towards 
Bonehill Down, and here were Chinkwell and Bell 
and Honey bags on ahead. There across the valley 
was Hamildown, looming amethystine already on 
this his shadowed side, looking indeed like the 
mighty father of all amethysts ; — and there, away 
down in the valley among the clustering trees, were 
the russet-brown roofs of Heysham, the Mecca of 
my pilgrimage, the centre of all my hopes. 

Then the long swift dive down Graystone Hill, 
and my good friend the landlord of the little inn was 
already fathering me, before I was well out of the 
car, and in a dozen little ways testifying his joy at 
the return of the prodigal. 

There was a blazing fire of logs on the hearth in 
my sitting-room, and on the table a letter. 

It was just two words from My Lady, — “ Wel- 
come ! — Beatrice.” 

My heart leaped at it. I accepted it as an omen, 
though I knew that it was but just one more of those 
little forethoughtful delicacies of friendly attention 
which only such large busy hearts as hers have 
leisure and grace to indulge in. 

Eight o’clock found me in my back corner externe 


234 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


seat in the little white chapel. It was quite dark as 
I came along the lanes, and lingered for a moment 
on the bridge to hear in advance My Lady’s voice 
in the ripple of the stream against its boulder. 

The ever-open door of the little sanctuary prof- 
fered me rosy welcome before I passed through the 
green wicket-gate. I felt like a strayed sheep coming 
back to the fold, — like a wanderer of the night 
returning to the warmth and cheer of home. 

The ruby lamp that swung before the altar cast 
a white light on the roof and upper’part of the walls, 
and a soft crimson shadow on all below. The 
dividing -line just touched the head of the crucified 
Christ on the south wall and threw it into startling 
prominence. The rest of the drooping figure was 
all tinged red. 

As the red light flickered in the draught of the 
open door, once more it seemed to me as though 
the face of Him who hung there on the Cross worked 
again in its last agony, while in front of Him the 
red lamp swung gently like a censer held by angel 
hands, offering for His comfort the incense of many 
fervent prayers. 

I knelt and thanked God for all He had done for 
me since that first night I came there — and most 
of all for the gracious goodness of her whose prayers 
and wisdom and faithful friendliness had wrought 
this wondrous change in me. 

My thoughts, as I knelt, wandered back inevitably 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


235 


to that first unwarrantable intrusion on the privacy 
of My Lady’s sanctuary, — when I had actually 
dragged her from her prayers and thrust my doleful 
self and my troubles upon her already burdened soul. 

My heart was profoundly touched at being there 
once more. I had come, bondman more than most, 
and she had set me free. All the worship of my soul 
and the fullest service of my whole life could not 
suffice to thank her. I prayed God, as I had never 
prayed before, for His richest blessing on her, for 
all time, and after. 

And when I raised my head at last she was kneel- 
ing there before me in her accustomed place. 

I sat and watched the golden crown, toned to 
gleaming copper by the ruby lamp, and thought on 
the past and the future. And my airy castles shook 
a little at their foundations. 

It was easier to think such wild possibilities when 
far away from her than here in her actual presence. 

She was wearing the Madonna-blue gown with 
much lace, and a necklace of turquoise and pearls 
and tiny turquoise beads in her ears, — perhaps to 
give me welcome. For the first time I had seen her 
so arrayed I had been somewhat overwhelmed and 
felt like a worm before her, and she had been in- 
finitely amused and had laughed me out of it. 

In my infatuation as builder of air-castles I drew 
good augury from even so small a thing as her choice 
of a dress to wear that night. Perhaps, I said to 


236 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


myself, she has already come to realise the useless- 
ness of wasting the wealth of her love where it is 
not deemed worth the taking. Perhaps . . .ah, 
well, you see, my hopes and my imagination had 
taken the bits in their teeth and were doing a gallop 
on their own account. 

‘‘ Heartiest congratulations ! ” she said warmly, 
when at last she came towards me with outstretched 
hand. “ It looks like going.” 

‘‘ It is going. The bookstall at Paddington had 
six all in a row.” 

“ Splendid ! That is fame. And I am heartily 
glad. And you are quite recovered ? ” 

“ Oh, quite. I never felt better in my life.” 

‘‘ An illness sometimes has that effect. It clears 
the system of minor ills.” 

“ And you ? ” — and I scrutinised her face for 
sign of her feeling. 

“ Better,” she said, with the steady gray eyes 

full on mine. ‘‘ But ” and she stooped to 

pick up the charged lamp, and stepped lightly up 
on to the seat, and set her foot on the rail in front, 
and lit the new lamp, and deftly exchanged it for 
the old. 

And it seemed to me very typical of her, and 
symbolic too. Be her own troubles what they might 
there was always duty to be done, and she stepped 
bravely up to do it, and in that was the charm and 
race of her life. 


MY LADY OP THE MOOR 


237 


“ Come into the dining-room,” she said, when all 
was done, “ and tell me everything you have been 
doing and thinking. Have you decided on your 
next book yet ? ” 

She cast her usual lingering loving look round the 
little white chapel, as though loth to leave it even 
for the night, and we went through the long dim 
passage to the dining-room — the room with the 
curtained doorway through which she had come to 
me that first night like the dawn of a new life. 

The light of the shaded lamp blended with the 
glow of the burning peats on the cobbett in the wide 
fire-place, and glimmered and winked back from 
the old oak furniture and the glass doors of the 
cabinets and bookcases. Over the fire-place the 
row of copper pans and kettles caught up the re- 
flections and made a warm little afterglow of their 
own, like the dusky amber in the west when the sun 
has gone down behind Hamildown. 

To a homeless man the snug warmth and home- 
liness of it all made almost overpowering appeal, and 
brought a swelling of the heart and a moistening of 
the eyes. Never in all my life had an ordered home 
seemed so desirable to me. 

That room of course held memories for me that 
no other place in the world could ever hope to equal, 
for it was the birthplace of my better self. 

“ Smoke if you please ! I know it will make you 
happier,” she said, and picked up the kitten from 


238 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


the hearth and sank down into a low lounging-chair 
with it in her lap. ‘‘ And now — ^tell ! — as we say on 
Dartymoor.” 

“ What shaU I teU ? ” 

“ Everything ! ” — Ah, if I had been able to, and 
dared ! — “ Everything you are not ashamed of.” 

“ IVe nothing to be ashamed of, — nothing I dare 
not tell.” 

“ That’s more than most men could say. Well — 
I won’t tease you. What have you decided about 
your next book ? Much will be expected of you 
now, you know,” and we fell to discussion of it. 

She showed no outward sign of the grief-storm 
she had passed through. Her face and her manner 
were alike perfectly calm and controlled. Only in 
her eyes I thought I could detect at times just a 
shadow of weariness, as of one who had passed 
through bitterness and still felt the effects. 

We never touched upon her trouble. For her, it 
was, I could well believe, too recent, too grievous, 
too sacred. And for me, — it surely was not in me 
to resurrect what I hoped with all my heart she 
might be trying her best to bury for ever. 

And in that silence concerning it my heart found 
occasion for hope. 


17 . 


T\ARTMOOR is not probably a place that most 
people would choose as a winter resort. The 
winter I spent there was the happiest, and in every 
way the most enjoyable, of my life. 

At the inn I had every possible comfort. At 
Heysham I had inspiration such as falls to the lot 
of few. On the rare good days the invitation of 
Moor and Tor to climb and see how good the earth 
still was, in spite of rains and mists and storms, was 
irresistible, and My Lady was always ready for a 
walk when her many other duties permitted. 

And I was working hard on my next book. 

What could man want more ? 

Well, the satisfied man — ^putting aside dead- 
drunks and the occupants of lunatic asylums — is 
still to be sought. 

Man is ever wanting more. And I, — with the 
happiest of environment, with work to do which 
was joyous in its engrossment, and with the up- 
lifting friendship of My Lady, — still wanted more. 
With every fibre of my heart and soul, with every 
craving that was in me, I wanted My Lady herself 
— all herself for myself. 


239 


240 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


Apart from that — which I still think was both 
natural and inevitable, as for me it was certainly 
mightily uplifting — our friendship was perfect. 

I owed everything that I was, or might ever hope 
to be, to her. I worshipped her as I had not dreamed 
it was in the heart of man to worship. 

And she — she regarded me, I knew, as one of the 
prizes life had yielded her, — as one of her answered 
prayers, — as a mother regards her returned prodigal. 
As anything more ? . . . I could not tell. But 
hope I could, and did. 

I saw her at least twice a day, for on the days 
when I was not actually working in the chapel — 
and I could always write there better than anywhere 
else in the world — I made it a practice to go up both 
morning and evening, at the times when I knew 
she would be there, no matter what the weather. 
And sometimes it was bad enough. 

It made a break in the day’s work ; it gave me 
always a sense of uplift ; the sight and sound of 
her were always to be looked forward to, — and 
looked back upon. And I made my own prayers in 
the little sanctuary with not only no slightest 
sense of incongruity, but with immense spiritual 
benefit, even though my eyes might be resting on 
what my strict forebears would have called graven 
images and been mightily offended at. 

They never troubled me. Very much the con- 
trary indeed,— for the sight of the dying Christ on 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


241 


the Cross always quickened in me a sense of His 
wonderful love and my own vast disparity and need. 
And they were to My Lady, I could see, no more 
than aids to devotion in a similar way. 

But with the growth of my knowledge of her 
inner self, as manifested in her outward doings, my 
ideas on all such matters had broadened till limits 
to them barely existed. 

No doubt I was vastly influenced in all this by 
the personality of My Lady herself and my love and 
reverence for her. But truly it seemed to me that 
any religion which could have produced her was 
worthy of highest respect ; for never in my life so 
far had I met so devout and fervent a worshipper, 
nor one so wise and clear-sighted, nor one with such 
implicit faith in the Higher Powers, nor one who 
so perpetually expressed her religion in the natural 
and gracious terms of her daily life. 

Often when I sat writing in the chapel and wanted 
a few minutes’ rest, I would pick up one and another 
of the many books spread broadcast over the bench, 
within hand’s reach of the place where she always 
sat. She loved to have her favourites all about her, 
and everything she left there was at the service of 
any who desired. 

Many a delightful sidelight on her thoughts and 
tastes and feelings I got from the swift pencil- 
markings which showed her special approval of this 
passage or of that. And it was in this way that I 


R 


242 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


lighted on some verses of hers, typed on a slip, and 
used in her own missal as a marker. 

I read them eagerly, for they were one side of her 
very self — just her all through, in one of her high, 
exalted moods when cost was nothing compared 
with attainment. 

She called them “ One Golden Day,” and just 
such golden days — in some of their aspects — we had 
had together on the moors and hills, and the verses 
came home to me. 

I could not but wonder — and wonder keenly — 
when they were written. There was no date — 
nothing to show when. If lately — I would draw 
wild hope from them. If long since — ^they need not 
necessarily strip me bare of hope. For what had 
been need not necessarily so continue for ever — in 
the face of undeserved ill-treatment — no matter how 
staunch and true the sufferer. 

Anyway, the lines appealed to me mightily. Just 
so would I right gladly have given full one -half of 
all the days still due to me, if by so doing I could 
have ensured her close and loving companionship 
for the remaining half. 

Under the impulse of my vast enjoyment of 
them I made a hasty copy of the verses in my 
note-book, and savoured them many times after- 
wards. 

Here they are, just as My Lady wrote them and 
as I copied them. I love them s ill. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


243 


I ask of life one golden day, 

Before my sum of days shall be, — 

A day whose price I fain would pay 
With all the days yet due to me. 

Twin sister of the day now done. 

Whose white and gold knew ne’er a stain. 

Before the clouds shut out the sun. 

And shadowed all my life with pain. 

One other Autumn Day with him. 

Inside the hills’ encircling arms. 

To see them folded, rim on rim. 

Between us and the world’s alarms. 

To feel the tide of wine-red blood 

Through every nerve and fibre swirl, — 

To see the river’s rippling flood 

Flash o’er the pebbles white as pearl. 

Beneath our feet, the flower-sown land. 

The sun’s warm kiss upon our skin. 

Heart bare to heart, hand locked in hand. 

As children, clean from smallest sin. 

And thus to wander through a world 
Of opal and of amethyst. 

On heather still with dews empearled. 

Up hill-brows veiled in golden mist. 

Until at length oUr dazzled eyes 

Naught, naught but gold, gold, gold can see ; 

A golden world ’neath golden skies. 

All life one golden ecstasy. 

Then, noontide meal from shallow scrip. 

With but one cup us two between ; 

O happy fault, that lets my lip. 

All eager, press where his has been. 


244 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


And when the day her gold has spent. 

Yet more and other gold to come, — 

While rest we twain in tired content. 

Beside the fire, — that gold of home. 

And then, to kneel beside his chair. 

Within the haven of his arm. 

His kingly hand upon my hair. 

And know myself so safe from harm. 

Last, on his breast to fall asleep. 

Rocked by the rhythm of his breath. 

And never wake again to weep : 

O happy sleep that men call death ! 

My God, I ask this perfect bliss. 

Before my sum of days shall be, — 

To purchase one such day as this 
With all the days yet due to me ! 

On the bright rare days we frequently flung work 
aside and care to the winds and took to the Moor, 
and the Moor was always joyous to us in its ever- 
changing guises, and she knew them all. And after 
such excursions she would at times come in to tea 
with me at the inn, an event always regarded there 
as conferring upon it unusual honour. 

My room looked out on to the back garden and 
Hamildown, and was absolutely quiet and private ; 
and with a roaring fire of logs, and My Lady at the 
tea-table, there was not a room in England I would 
have changed it with — except her own most 
delightful dining-room at Hey sham, which stood 
first of all rooms in my estimation. 

And here, or there, before the fire of logs or the 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


245 


fire of peats on the iron cobbett, we would after- 
wards sit and talk, deeply at times, on many and 
strange subjects. 

The next world and our life in it was a very 
favourite subject of My Lady’s musings, and very 
cheerful and characteristic were her hopes and ideas 
concerning it. 

“ For myself,” I remember her saying, “ I shall 
ask God to let me go on tending troubled souls just 
as I try to do now, but with all the added knowledge 
and power that I shall have then. And He will let 
me, I am sure. . . . And I would like also to help 
struggling young writers — suggest ideas for good 
books to them, — help them to the right word ” 

“ No one could do it better,” I said. 

‘‘ There will be such an immensity of things to 
do. Oh, it will be a brave, busy life. ...” 

“ And, fortunately, plenty of time to do it in.” 

“ Yes, — all eternity, thank God ! — For ever — and 
for ever — and for ever ! Can you imagine it, Ian 
Carril ? It will be very wonderful. . . . And I shall 
have my poor Lancelot to get out of Purgatory ...” 
and she fell to silent musing. 

And I said nothing. My views as to Purgatory 
were nebulous, and I had been hoping that other 
might have been less in her thoughts of late. 

We were up at Tunhill Tor one afternoon, and 
there My Lady chose a favourite nook among the 
big rocks which sheltered us from the easterly wind ; 


246 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


and we sat and looked out — over Believer, a mighty 
amethyst carved roughly to the shape of a woman’s 
breast ; — and Hamildown, a dusky giant, with bare 
brown shoulders, and lower limbs draped in a 
patchwork of varicoloured tillage ; — and the wide 
valley, where the gray of houses and rocks showed 
prominently through the thinned-out greens and 
russet-browns of the leafless trees. 

And, as we sat looking out over the little world 
that was so dear to both of us, those verses of hers, — 
“ One Golden Day,” came back to me with unique 
force, and I began to repeat them. 

She turned and gazed at me, at first in surprise, 
then with understanding. But before I had ended 
she had turned again and was sitting looking raptly 
at Believer once more. 

‘‘ Yes ! ” she said presently. “ I remember 
writing them. And I felt like that at the time ; . . . 
but now . . .” 

“ But now ? ” I asked, when the pregnant silence 
had lasted too long for my tingling senses. 

“ Now I think they were somewhat overstrained, 
maybe. Now I would make no bargain with God. 
I see things clearer. If He wills it, it will be. If 
not — it is for the best. ... It was one day when 
we had been to Believer — he and I. And I knew 
that he loved me, though he had not then told me 
so. Then — afterwards ... as you know.” 

And then she turned suddenly to me and asked : 


247 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

“ Are you falling in love with me, Ian Carril ? ” 
Her very direct questions were apt to take one 
aback at times, but this one required no considera- 
tion and was easily answered. 

“ Yes.” 

“ And you would marry me if I consented to it ? ” 
“ To-day, if you permitted. To-morrow, if you 
insisted on delay.” 

“ Then, dear friend, don’t ! ” 

“ But how can I help it ? I fell in love with you 
that very first night, — as a man might love an angel 

— worshipfully, but without hope. But now ” 

“ My friend, my very dear friend and brother, — 
don’t ! ” — she laid her hand momentarily on my arm. 
“ It can only lead to sorrow for both of us. . . . 
I shall never marry, in the usual sense of the word. 
For one thing, I am wedded to my chapel and my 
life of prayer. Look at my wedding-ring ! ” and 
she held out her right hand, on the third finger of 
which I had often noticed a plain gold band. ‘‘ For 
another thing, my heart is all Lancelot’s. You 
thought I might change, — that his treatment of me 
would turn me from him. 0, my dear, how little 
you know of love ! How can I make you understand 
it ? ... I love him more than ever, and shall do 
till I die — and still more after. Can you not under- 
stand ? ” 

“ No,” I said, presently, and somewhat dully, at 
this sudden and utter destruction of my airy castles. 


248 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“ I cannot understand . ; . yet ... I was a fool. 
... I had dared to hope. I thought I knew you. 
I know you are staunch and true above belief. But 

. . . after all he has done — all you have suffered 

... It is beyond me.’’ 

She reached out a quick impulsive hand, as was 
her way, and grasped mine. 

“ Dear friend — and brother ! You are no fool. 
Not many perhaps could understand. Nay, I don’t 
know that I understand it fully myself, but there 
it is. My heart craves him stiff ” 

“ After all he has done ! — after all you have 
suffered ! No, — I cannot understand it. . . . And 
with no hope of him ever changing ” 

“ I hope always,” she said quickly. “ And I pray 
always, for him and for myself. When God sees 
fit He will give him back to me. If He does not — 
then it is best so. . . . See now, — I am making you 
suffer, I know. I cannot help it. Will you hate me 
for it ? ” 

“ Hate you ? I love you all the more. I cannot 
help it either.” 

“ There ! — you see ! You are learning what love 
is. You love me, and no matter what I did you 
would go on loving me. Is not that so ? ” 

“ Surely ! ” 

“ Well, that is how I feel to that other, and I 
cannot help myself. And that is the highest love — 
to love on and on without return, — ay, even when 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 249 

the return is scorn and contumely. . . . That — is 
— love ! ” 

The last words she spoke as though speaking to 
her inner self, to her own soul, — in a low soft voice, 
with such a deep and vibrant thrill in it that it 
struck right to my heart. And then she fell silent 
and sat gazing across at Believer. 

“You will not let it spoil our friendship ? ” she 
asked wistfully at last, with her hand on my arm 
again. 

I bent and touched her hand with my lips, and 
said, out of the fulness of my heart, “ I would lay 
down my life to win you happiness.’’ 

“ I am sure you would. But there is nothing 
you can do — except remain my very dear friend. 
I can’t tell you what you have been to me — how 
you have helped. You will never know, because 
you never can know all the soreness of my wounding. 
His contempt and scorn of me positively made me 
feel soiled and bedraggled, as though I had sinned 
myself. I cannot explain it. . . .It was as though 
the abuse he flung at me was actual mud, and stuck, 
and I could not get rid of the feeling of it. Oh, it 
was horrible. I had done nothing, and yet I felt 
stained. . . . And your respect and reverence and 
consideration have given me back some of my own 
self-respect. I felt like a pariah. You have made 
me feel what you have thought me. It would 
wound me mortally if I lost you too. ... I believe 


250 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

God sent you for my healing. It would be just like 
Him.” 

And after a silence she asked abruptly, “ Did you 
recognise him ? ” It was the first time she had 
referred to the miniature. 

‘‘ Yes.” 

‘‘ When it had gone I was sorry I had sent it. It 
was not wisdom, but I was off my balance at the 
time. . . . You hold his honour in your hands.” 

“ It is as safe there as your own.” 

“ I know it. I trust you completely. ... It is 
very comforting to be able to speak of it all with 
one I can trust and who knows all about it. It is a 
great bond between us. Now that my dear Father 
Dominic is gone you are the only man, except the 
old lawyer, who knows it all.” 

“ I am very grateful for your trust in me. I 
wish I could help.” 

“ But you cannot,” she said hastily, in obvious 
fear lest the idea of interfering in some way should 
be in me. “ Only God can help me in this, and when 
He sees it good to do so He will. I can wait His 
time.” 

And she rose and we went down the hill together. 


18 . 


~T ANODYNED my sense of loss with the hardest 
of hard work on my book. There at least I 
could have my own way — to some extent, at all 
events. And meanwhile My Dear Lady was there. 
I could, and did, see her every day, and the sight 
and sound of her were always mightily comforting 
and uplifting. 

I found myself regarding myself somewhat aloofly 
— ^from the outside, as it were — in this matter. 
When I was by myself I wondered at her supreme 
constancy to — not even an ideal — simply to a man 
whom I deemed utterly unworthy of her. I mar- 
velled at it. I argued with myself that, in spite of 
all she still felt, the time might yet come 

But the moment I met her, these tiny tentative 
tendrils of hope withered, and I knew that, be the 
object of it what he might, her ideal of Love would 
never lower by one golden hair’s breadth, — that she 
would go on loving and hoping till she died, and 
after. 

Her characteristic bringing of the matter to a 
head and clearing away of all possible misunder- 
standings between us set our friendship on a still 

firmer basis, and in spite of my occasional hopelessly 
261 


252 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


hopeful lapses when I was away from her, when we 
were together our hearts were very open to one 
another. 

And our friendship grew. For her I had given up 
the grim black thing that had devoured half my 
days, and but for her would have had them all. 
For her I had given up the one sole bright hope of 
my life. There remained but one thing left to me, 
and that I vowed should be devoted to her happiness, 
— if indeed her happiness could possibly come to her 
from the gaining of her heart’s desire. And of that 
I was still more than doubtful. 

But I had infinite faith in her own clear wisdom, 
and in the spiritual perception she derived from her 
intimate intercourse with her Higher Powers in her 
little sanctuary. 

She believed it well to strive still for this that had 
been denied her through some malign earthly 
influence. There remained nothing for me but to 
endeavour, with all my heart and soul, to further 
her wishes. 

And so the intention again took root in me to 
seek out this man, and if possible to strike the scales 
from his eyes and open them to the value and beauty 
of what he was so perversely rejecting. As to the 
ultimate issue, should I succeed in bringing them 
together, that I must perforce leave to those Other 
Friends of My Lady in whom she reposed such 
implicit confidence. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


253 


I said no word of my intention to her. For, in 
the first place, I knew she would instantly veto it. 
And, in the second, I wished to be able to say to that 
man, when I confronted him, that this that I was 
doing was entirely of my own devising and that she 
knew nothing whatever about it. 

It was April before my book was finished. It had 
gone slower than the first by reason of the distraction 
of my mind at times on these other matters, and 
also to some extent by my desire to make it an 
improvement on the first. Second books, after a 
first success, are critical matters, I knew ; and third 
ones still more so ; and I was determined that so 
far as in me lay nothing should be lacking to make 
it an advance on the other. 

Towards the end of the month, when Nature was 
all aquick with the burgeoning of Spring, I was ready 
to go, — as ready, that is, as a man could be whose 
heart was lost to the Moor and given irrevocably 
to her who dwelt there. 

I had been able to get no definite information as 
to ‘ Lancelot’s ’ whereabouts. Knowing now who 
he was, and the delicate relation in which we stood 
to one another, I had to make my enquiries very 
cautiously. 

Denver I could not ask. Johnstone I could not 
ask. For both would instantly have jumped to the 
conclusion that I had had a relapse from sanity and 
was on his track once more. 


254 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


The man seemed to have disappeared. He was 
probably off again on one of those confidential 
missions connected with military matters which 
seemed to occupy most of his time. I could only 
hope that in London I might be able to get definite 
news as to where he was and when he was likely to 
be back. 

Before going, however, I desired greatly to make 
two very special pilgrimages. One with My Lady 
to her favourite Dream Tor ; the other by myself 
to Believer. For these two held their own unique 
places in my heart. 

It was a perfect Spring day that we spent, first 
on Hound Tor, and then, crossing a great space of 
high moor, on Dream Tor. 

There had been rain the previous day, and the 
soft white sunshine and thin black shadows chased 
one another riotously over the Moor and Tors and 
played hide-and-seek in the valleys. The bracken 
was only pushing its curly brown fingers through 
the crust, but some of the hill-sides were aflame with 
gorse. In the ploughed fields the red-brown earth 
was splashed with the tender green of coming crops. 
The meadows were dappled with frolicsome white 
lambs, and the air was full of their bleatings ; and 
on the Moor, troops of ponies and tiny stifi-legged 
foals fled at our approach. 

The distant ridges and Tors loomed blue under the 
rain-washed sky. Only when the shadows lingered 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


255 


on them did they momentarily don their deep rich 
robes of amethyst, and everywhere the rough gray 
summits of the Tors stood out, bold and stark, like 
the helmed heads of ancient gods, pushing through 
from the underworld to see what the sons of men 
were making of things up above. 

They seemed to me in very truth to be, every one 
of them, straining to the very limits of their rugged 
necks to catch a glimpse over their fellows* shoulders 
of My Lady. And I shared the feeling to the full 
and gazed my fill, determined to carry with me to 
the noisome city this fair remembrance of her. 

She was always particular about her dress and 
the adaptation of colours to her own, and she 
rejoiced in looking her best, as every true woman 
should. When God dowers a woman with grace and 
beauty it surely pleases Him to see it becomingly 
adorned. 

She was wearing, that day, another wonderful 
costume of golden brown with a shining satin belt 
of the same colour, and it was trimmed round the 
neck, and down the front as far as the waist, with 
some soft velvety stuff of exactly the same shades as 
the peacock’s feathers twined round the crown of 
her black hat. 

The shaded loveliness of the blacks and blues and 
greens set off her hair and face and eyes to per- 
fection. I had never seen her so bewitching, and 
I could hardly take my eyes off her. 


256 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“ Am I not pretty ? ’’ she laughed joyously, when 
she caught me staring. 

‘‘ Past words ! ’’ 

“ God is very good, and He likes to see me at my 
best.’’ 

And as we sat, noting and quietly remarking on 
the seasonable changes on the Moor, the sun lit 
suddenly on the Prison away on the slope of Hessary, 
and the same thought stirred us both. Just so had 
it sprung out at us that other day, which seemed so 
long ago, when, sitting on these same gray rocks, 
I had at last responded to the call in me which her- 
self, and her prayers, and her wise and gracious 
treatment had evoked, — and had finally shed 
my nightmare load and cast my lot for better 
things. 

As was her way when words were not enough, 
she reached out her hand, with shining face and eyes. 
I held the soft, capable hand for a moment and then 
bent and kissed it. There were times when words 
failed me. 

“ We have travelled far since then,” she said 
meaningly. 

“ From outer darkness into the light, — from hell 
to ... at all events, earth ” 

“ I wish I could give you your heaven, dear 
friend,” she sighed softly. “ But . . . you know 
... it is impossible.” 

“ When I think of how things were with me then. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


257 


it is much to hear myself called ‘ dear friend.' It 
is more than I ever looked for, or would have 
believed possible. I wish to God I could make you 
return in kind.” 

“ But you have done. You are doing. Every 
step in your progress is a thank-offering. It is sweet 
to me like the incense in my little House of Bread 
when God Himself is there. Oh, I am grateful to 
you for it all. And — your friendship, your devotion 
to me, your reverence, the assurance that you have 
brought back to me that I am lovable in spite of 
the rebuffs and denials I have met with elsewhere — 
I cannot tell you what these have meant to me. 
If it was given to me to help you, you have no less 
helped me.” 

“ I wish I could do more. I have only one wish 
now, and that is your completest happiness.” 

“ I know it, dear friend, and my heart thanks you. 
But that is beyond our compassing. When God 
sees it well, He will undoubtedly bring it about. 
I can wait, for I trust Him implicitly. . . . How 
long do you expect to be away ? ” 

“ I cannot say definitely. ... I am coming to 
count every day lost that I spend away from the 
Moor.” 

“ Yes, — that is how I always feel. I am not 
myself again till I get back. It's wonderful how it 
wraps itself round one's heart.” 

“ To-morrow I am going to spend on Believer,” 
s 


258 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“ Ah ! ” she sighed softly. 

“It is my first love and my last, though your 
Dream Tor is close up to it.” 

“ Some time I too shall go to Believer,” she said 
quietly, nodding her shapely head with pregnant 
meaning. “ Some time . . . with — him ! . . . I 
know it. ... I am as sure of it as that I am sitting 
here. ... If it is not in this life, then it certainly 
will be in the next,” — and her face, when I looked 
at it, was luminous with that hopeful faith and 
certainty. 

The following day I went alone to Believer, going 
by way of Lower Cat or and Rowden, and the plan- 
tations and Cat or Common, to Believer Bridge, and 
then straight up across the Moor to the great 
elusive Tor. 

I spent the whole day there. It was for me a 
solemn day of highest and deepest thought, and I 
came home the stronger for it. 

I lay all day among the great gray slabs, courting 
the sun and dodging the wind. I rejoiced quietly 
over the broken spell of the grim gray prison on 
the opposite ridge. I put up more than one un- 
spoken petition, as I lay there, for the poor souls 
still in bondage. By God’s great mercy, and My 
Lady’s good-will and wisdom, I had been delivered 
out of the net. I knew the soul-pressure of those 
grim stone walls, and out there, in the sweet wide 
freedom of the Moor, m}^ heart went out to my less 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


259 


fortunate brothers, even as My Lady’s, I knew, did 
all the time. 

But chiefly I thought of what lay in front of me. 
If I could find that man I was determined to lay 
My Lady’s case clearly and fully before him. Listen 
to me he should, if I had to hold him by the throat 
the while. The rest was in the hands of the Higher 
Powers. I could only hope for the best. 

I thought out all the possibilities of meeting him 
in circumstances suitable to the necessities of the 
case. And that I saw would be my greatest diffi- 
culty. If I could get hold of him, and obtain or 
compel his attention, I had little doubt that I could 
lay the matter before him in a way that should at 
all events go home, however cold, or heartless, or 
simply misinformed he might be. For I was very 
much fuller of the sense of My Lady’s rare qualities 
than ever she was herself. To her they were natural ; 
to me they were wonderful. 

The smoke from innumerable s waling fires, 
burning off the gorse to make room for more bene- 
ficent grass, came curling along the wind and hung 
around the rocks of the Tor, and made me think 
again of incense and altars. The pungent smell was 
as sweet to me as the incense-fumes which carry 
up the prayers of the people, and truly the great 
gTSbj Tor was to me an altar that day. 

And an altar with a sacrifice, for I was finally 
purging my soul of all smaller hopes and lesser 


260 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


things, and dedicating it absolutely to the service 
of My Lady ; — with no faintest hope now of response 
or return such as I had once dared to dream of. 

Her return had been made long since, in advance, 
and to the very fullest, when my response was still 
in doubt. And as I mused upon it all I got fresh 
light on the wonder and beauty of the Greatest 
Sacrifice of All, made once and in advance, for 
myself and for all mankind. 

I lived over again all the other days I had spent 
among those friendly gray giants, and it was only 
the sight of the setting sun that drove me at last 
down the crackling slope towards the bridge and the 
road across the Moor. 

I went up to the chapel that night, and wondered, 
as I watched My Lady at her prayers, if I should 
ever see her so again. 

She bade me good-bye and God-speed, when she 
had exchanged the ruby lamps, and little knew that 
it was her own welfare for which she was praying, 
more even than for mine. 


19 . 


F FOUND it extremely difficult to get any definite 
information as to the whereabouts of the man 
I sought. For my enquiries could only be made 
among the younger generation of press-men, who 
knew me only as Carril and did not in any way 
associate me with that old legend of some attempt 
on that other’s life, which was now almost buried 
in the limbo of ancient history. In these strenuous 
days, eight long years are very much more than 
enough to drop a very permanent veil over such an 
incident as that, unless you happen to be in some 
way intimately associated with it. 

As usual, he was said to be in hah a dozen dif- 
ferent places, — in France, in Flanders, in Servia, 
in Egypt, in Italy, in Russia. Each one of these I 
was explicitly given as the scene of his present 
mission. The fact, of course, being that, since his 
work was always confidential, enquiries as to his 
whereabouts were always countered by diplomatic 
evasions and perversions. 

I passed the proofs of my book and saw it on sale, 
and still waited on. My man might return any day. 
It was only here, at the centre of things, that I could 

possibly come across him. 

261 


262 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


But I grew very sick of the sights and sounds and 
smells of London in the hot weather. I longed 
ardently for the fresh sweet winds of Dartmoor, 
and every letter I received from My Lady increased 
my longing to return. 

One evening, to pass the slow hours, I wandered 
into the Savoy Theatre. Someone had advised me 
to see Stephen Phillips’s “ Sin of David,” and I 
went. 

The sonorous lines and sombre subject were not 
uncongenial to my feelings. I was following the 
last scene with interest when a man, some distance 
along the row of stalls behind me, rose suddenly 
to go. 

He came slowly along, to the obvious annoyance 
of the other occupants of the row. A man behind 
me muttered “ Damn ! ” and I glanced round to see 
what was causing the disturbance. Then I got up 
also and passed through the swing-door almost at 
his heels. 

Providence had not overlooked me. It was the 
man I sought, — altered much in face since last we 
met, changed even since My Lady’s miniature was 
painted, but without doubt my man. 

And, in my now larger knowledge of his past, 
I wondered what the change in him might mean. 

It was the same high fine face, but hardened and 
saddened beyond belief. It was almost grim in its 
embitterment. Not one trace was there in it of the 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


263 


joy of life or pride of accomplishment — yet both 
of these he had tasted to the full. 

I recovered my cloak and hat at the same time 
as he did his. I did not think there was any chance 
of his recognising me, but I sedulously kept my back 
to him. 

I was close behind him as he passed out. He 
turned into the Strand, hesitated for a moment as 
to a taxi, and then walked slowly westward. 

The pavements were thronged. He turned down 
Adam Street and into John Street, and so into 
Villiers Street. A woman spoke to him, even turned 
and walked alongside him for a dozen yards, still 
speaking to him. She was handsome and hand- 
somely dressed. He never even looked at her. He 
just walked slowly on like one completely buried 
in his own gloomy thoughts. He turned under the 
railway bridge and passed on to the Embankment. 

Providence was good to me. I could not have 
wished better. 

He took off his hat and carried it in his hand, and, 
as he passed under the electric lamps, I saw that his 
hair was grizzling. The fine poise and carriage of 
his head and shoulders made me think of My Lady. 
She too carried herself in just that same lofty way. 
I saw her again as she sailed along the dim passage 
in front of me that first night. 

Then — I followed her because I loved her the 
moment I saw her. 


264 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


Now, for her sake, I was following the man whom 
I hated above every man on earth, — whom for 
some inscrutable reason she loved above every man 
on earth. 

Then — my following had led to the saving of my 
soul. 

What v/ould it lead to now ? The saving of his 
soul ? 

I doubted it, from the hard look on his face. But 
I could only do my best. If I could only induce him 
to go to My Lady — to meet her, face to face. . . . 
But he looked like one who would be hard to lead 
and impossible to drive. 

My long-looked-for opportunity had come, how- 
ever. We were abreast of that loneliest part of the 
Embankment between Whitehall Stairs and New 
Scotland Yard. 

I stepped forward and laid my hand on his 
shoulder. 

“ I desu’e a few words with you, and I 

named him by his right name. 

He neither started nor showed surprise. He simply 
turned his head in a bored fashion and looked at me. 

“ I have waited months for this chance,” I 
hurried on, “ and now you have got to listen.” 

He shrugged his broad straight shoulders slightly, 
and looked as though he would shake ojS my de- 
taining hand and go on his way. 

‘‘ It is about Beatrice — the Lady of the Moor ” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


265 


And at that he turned on me so keen and searching 
a look, in which soul-hunger predominated even over 
surprise, that I knew he must listen to me in spite 
of himself. 

“ What of her ? . . . And who the devil are you ? ’’ 
he snapped, and verily looked as if he would eat me 
alive. 

“ This — and understand, if you please, that she 
does not know I have come to you. She would be 
beside herself if she knew ” 

“ Then why the devil have you come ? ” 

“ Because I would give my life to give her happi- 
ness, and you have come near to killing her with 
your brutality. She is an angel of purity and good- 
ness, — and my God ! — what are you to treat her 
so ? And yet she loves you in spite of it all. You 
have won the heart of one of the noblest of women 
and you trample it in your own filthy mire.” 

“ And where do you come in ? ” — he could not 
forbid himseK the taunt, though he winced as he 
made it. 

We had halted near a lamp in the vehemence of 
the moment ; he held his hat in his hand still ; 
I could see every detail of his face, though he had it 
admirably under control. 

But he was all aboil inside, as I could see by his 
eyes as he sped another shaft, poisonous, but, as 
it seemed to me afterwards, perhaps not wholly 
unnatural in the peculiar circumstances of my 


266 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


aggression, which undoubtedly lent themselves to 
grossest misapprehension. 

“If it is money you and she want ”... and, 
recognising where we were, he glanced meaningly 
in the direction of New Scotland Yard. 

“ Willingly — if you will,” I answered shari)ly. 
“ Whose life will best stand full disclosure ? — yours 
or hers ? But that is unworthy even of you. Will 
you hear what I have got to say ? ” 

He looked keenly into my eyes and face, knitted 
his broad white brows perplexedly for a moment, — 
I thought he was recognising me, — then indicated 
a vacant seat, too near Police Head- quarters to 
tempt even the weariest of vagrants, and we walked 
along and sat down. 

“ Well ? — go on ! ” he said curtly. “ Say your 
say and have done with it ! ” 

He rested his right elbow on his knee and his face 
against his fist, in the attitude of one listening perforce. 

“ I have more to say than you imagine. I thank 
you for giving me this chance of saying it. . . . 
Eight years ago you robbed me of my sister, Honor 
Daunt.” He sat up and looked at me. “ You 
broke her life and mine. I retaliated by trying to 
kill you. I was a novice and I bungled, or we would 
neither of us be here. I served my term in Dartmoor 
Prison, and I lived for only one thing — and that 
was to make an end of you as soon as I was free 
again. . . .” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


267 


A burly constable came sauntering along, glanced 
at us, recognised my companion, saluted and re- 
ceived a brief response, and passed slowly on. 

. . . “ I spent my ticket time abroad, and lived 
night and day with only one intention, and that 
was your death as soon as I could accomplish it. 
The purpose was not natural to me. Your false- 
dealing with my sister had twisted to evil everything 
in me that might have made for good. For seven 
years I fought bitterly within myself to keep the 
evil uppermost. Then, by God’s mercy, I came 
across My Lady of Hey sham, through reading one 
of her books. I found out where she lived. I went 
to see her. . . . By her goodness, her wisdom, her 
many prayers, she cast out my devils and gave me 
new life. And that life I would gladly lay down to 
serve her. That is why I am here. She does not 
know of it. It would come near to killing her if she 
knew. But I will serve her if I can, in spite of 
herseK, because of what she has done for me. She 
has saved your life from me. If I can give you back 
to her it will be something. That is why I am here. 
She loves you stUl — in spite of your brutal treatment 
of her — in spite even of all you have to regret in 
your past life. . . .” 

His eyes had never left my face since I began, 
except for a second when the policeman passed ; 
but, as I said that, a steely glint shot from them and 
his jaw clenched tighter. 


268 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


. . . “ I know it all. I was a newspaper man, you 
see, before I was a convict, and more is known among 
them than ever gets out, fortunately for some of you. 
That you, soiled and stained beyond redemption, 
from any but God’s point of view, should treat such 
a one as My Lady of the Moor as though she were 
the sinner and you the saint must astound even 
God Himself. Man ! — do you know what you are 
doing ? Night and day she is on her knees for you 
in her little white chapel, pleading with God for 
you — you — ^you ! And you scorn and flout her as 
though she were the stained and you the stainless. 
God will surely require a heavy reckoning from you 
for treating one of his dearest servants so.” 

‘‘ I was told ” he began hoarsely, gazing no 

longer at me, but down at the pavement. 

''You were told ” I echoed scornfully. “You 

were told ! Good God in heaven ! You know My 
Lady. You loved her. And you were told ! And 
you believed ! . . . And she, knowing you, and all 
about you, — knowing the whole damnable truth 
about you — Cloves you still and spends herself in 
prayer to God for your redemption ! . . . Truly you 
make the reckoning against you a heavy one. . . . 
She is the noblest and purest of women, and you 
have set yourself to break her heart . . . and you 
are doing it.” 

He had put up his other white flst on the other 
knee and his face was almost hidden between them. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


269 


The man was sujffering and I rejoiced at it. The 
adamantine crust of him was at all events pierced. 
He was feeling it, and I exulted. 

Now he opened the clenched fist nearest me in a 
gesture of protest. 

“ Don’t ! ” he said hoarsely. And presently : 
“ If she has suffered, I have suffered still more. 
... I have not had one hour free from the bitter- 
ness of it all since . . . since I was told . . . and, 
like a fool, believed. My pride in her and in myself 
was wounded to the quick. ... In my heart I 
doubted. But I was told by one I knew well 
that ” 

“ I won’t hear it,” I said sharply. “ Whatever 
it was it was a lie, and you ought to have known it. 
If an angel from heaven came down and slandered 
My Lady I would strike him in the mouth, — I, who 
have known her so little. And you, knowing her 
so well, knowing that every bit of her great heart 
was yours — you could listen — and believe ! My 
God ! I wonder He let you live.” 

“You have seen her — ^lately ? ” he asked presently. 

“ Three months ago. Since then I have been 
waiting here — for you.” 

“ What is it you want me to do ? ” — and the 
greatest victory of my life was won. The victory 
for the winning of which perhaps my whole life 
had been meant. 

“ Will you meet me at Paddington to-morrow 


270 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

and come down to the Moor with me ? I will be 
under the big clock at 10.15.” 

He eyed me keenly again, and his face was 
haggard and his eyes softer than I could have ever 
imagined them. 

“ I will come. I would like to see her once more, 
before ” 

He broke off short and rose heavily from the seat, 
gave me a perfunctory military salute, and went 
away through the shadows towards Westminster. 

I sat for a time considering the whole matter, and 
the next steps to be taken. 

Would he come in the morning ? 

I had to risk it. I called a taxi and went straight 
to Paddington. It was long after midnight, and 
I doubted if it would be possible to make the 
arrangements I wished, at that time of early 
morning. 

Eventually, however, I secured the ear of an 
official, who instantly doubted the possibility of 
securing a whole first-class compartment in the 
Riviera Express that day. 

It was holiday-time. The trains were running 
very full. Most of the seats were already booked, 
— and so on. 

To end the matter I whispered in his ear the name 
by which the world knew Lancelot. 

“ Oh — then — of course, sir ! That’s quite another 
story. I’ll see to it, sir,” and that was settled. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


271 


He’ll be for Okehampton, I suppose,” said my 
converted one knowingly. 

“ We go with you as far as Exeter,” I said cryptic- 
ally. 

“ Right you are, sir. I understand. I’ll see to 
it myself at once.” 

“ Thanks ! Just one other thing. The matter is 
strictly private. Please keep it so. Better put my 
name on the window if you must have a name,” 
and I gave him my card. 

‘‘ I understand, sir. I’ll see to it,” and I went 
home with my mind at rest on that point at all 
events. 

I spent an anxious night, however. I rejoiced, 
and even exulted, in the success so far of my self- 
assumed mission. But I could not but have some 
doubts as to whether after all he would actually 
turn up in the morning. He had been jerked out 
of his usual lofty self-possession by the exceptional 
nature of our talk. Cooler reflection might induce 
him to regard me simply as an offence worthy of no 
further consideration. 

But behind all my doubts was a strong feeling 
that he would come as he had promised. 

Noblesse oblige ! — and, since he had promised, it 
might be that he would come only to tell me that 
he had decided to go no further. My anxiety would 
not be at rest till he was actually in the train with 
no getting out of it till it reached Exeter. If I 


272 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


got him that far I could surely get him to the 
journey’s end. 

But, again, as I pondered deeply all we had said 
as we sat on that seat on the Embankment, the 
belief grew in me that he meant to see the matter 
through. 

Without a doubt he had a genuinely deep feeling 
for My Lady. He had himseK suffered keenly 
through the breach he had himself made. He was, 
I felt certain, as he sat there with me, convinced in 
his own mind that his suspicious pride had wronged 
her, and he was desirous of making reparation to 
the utmost of his power. 

All those to the good. 

Against them I might well set a possibly growing 
feeling of very natural suspicion against myself. 
Could I blame him if he came to believe my story 
simply the first step in a very obvious plot to lure 
him away from town and make an end of him ? 

Against that I set the fact that, knowing what he 
did about me, he must see that had I wanted to kill 
him I could have done it with perfect ease as we 
sat on that seat together. 

Then again, he was a good judge of men, or he 
could not carry out the delicate diplomatic work that 
was entrusted to him. And I hoped that my words 
and manner might have satisfied him as to my 
sincerity. 

But, above and beyond everything else, I knew^ 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


273 


from my own experience, the potent call of My Lady 
upon the heart and imagination of any man who 
had ever once been admitted to the holy place of 
her heart. This man had suffered bitterly through 
his own self -exile therefrom. The door of re- 
entrance lay open to him. 

Yes, he would come. I was convinced he would 
come. 

I was at the station before ten, and found my 
reserved compartment, with a courteous guard 
ready to do anything I wanted. 

I had prepared a telegram for My Lady — 

“ Be on Believer without fail at four to-day. He 
is coming. Carril.” 

I had intended to dispatch it as soon as I set eyes 
on my man in the station. But if he should happen 
to be a few minutes late it might be impossible, and 
I did not choose to entrust it to anyone else to send 
off. So very much depended on it. 

I took that risk also and sent it. If he never turned 
up I would have to send another cancelling the first. 
But I believed he would come. And at 10.15 I was 
standing under the clock looking out for the fine, 
hard, clean-cut face among the incoming mobs of 
lesser folk swarming away to the coast to make 
their little holidays. 

And I, by God’s good mercy, was taking to My 
Lady her heart’s desire, and repaying her to some 
extent for all she had done for me. No wonder I 


274 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


felt uplifted and aloof from the hot turmoil of 
humanity that boiled around me. 

At 10.25 I had a slight relapse of doubt. Perhaps 
he had thought better of it and would prove himself 
a smaller man than I had hoped. 

At 10.26 he walked quietly in, saw me and nodded, 
and I took him straight to our compartment. The 
expectant guard touched his hat with an admiring 
look, and locked us safely in. 


20 . 



OU had no doubts as to my coming then ? ” 


said my companion quietly, as the train 
ran smoothly out. 

‘‘ I knew you would come. My Lady wants you 
and she has waited long.” 

Then we fell silent for very many miles as the 
train whirled through the smiling country, — he, 
leaning back and gazing out of the window in deepest 
thought ; — I, in the other corner seat, glancing 
furtively at him at times, and wondering much what 
his thoughts might be. 

His face told me nothing whatever. Last night, 
under stress of my provocation, the mask had fallen 
for a moment. This morning it was impenetrable 
as ever. 

But at times the supreme and unsurpassable 
wonder of this unusual journey of ours took hold 
of me, and I would turn and look at him to make 
sure that he really was there and that I was not 
dreaming. 

But there he sat, the body and soul of him, gazing 
out at the flying country with those sombre in- 
scrutable eyes of his. And here sat I, who for nine 
years had lived only to kill him. And I — I of all 


276 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


men — was taking him to the woman I loved more 
than my life — the only woman I ever had loved or 
could love — wringing my heart bare for very love 
of her, because — marvel of marvels ! — she loved him 
still in spite of all his scorn and ill-treatment of her. 

Truly it is a strange world, and with all our 
boasted free-will we are still all subject to the in- 
fluence of powers beyond us. 

We were near Westbury before another word 
passed between us. Then, with obvious effort, 
under the impulsion of the better man within him, 
he turned and leaned towards me, and said, with 
deep feeling : 

“ I must tell you how grateful I am to you, Noel 
Daunt, for all you have done in this matter. That 
you have done it, and for her sake, is the strongest 
proof you could have given me of my own mistake, 
which I bitterly regret. It was God’s providence 
that you lighted on me last night. Another day 
or two and I should have been gone. And I have 

hoped that I might never return. . . . Now ” 

he threw out his two hands with something of the 
foreigner’s gesture of dissociation from results which 
none could foresee. 

‘‘ You think we shall be in it ?” I said. It was 
the end of that fateful month of July, when Europe 
was in the crucible, and Britain still stood at the 
side endeavouring to quench the flames. 

“ Yes, we shall be in it, and the end is beyond 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


277 


all knowledge. It will be very terrible. . . . Now, 
at all events, I shall carry with me the memory of 
the best of women and of a good man, — both of 
whom I have deeply wounded, — both of whom have 
forgiven me . . . yes, I thank God that you lighted 
on me last night. To-day I could come. To-morrow 
might have been too late.” 

We ran into Exeter prompt to the minute, went 
to the New London for lunch, — for a very trying 
time lay before him and it was only right that he 
should be bodily fit, — and an hour later we were 
speeding towards St. Thomas and Ide on the road 
to Dartmoor. 

After Longdown the car put on speed, and when 
we had raced through Moreton Hampstead we began 
the long climb to the distant blue heights of the 
Moor. 

It was a day of marvellous lights and shades and of 
rare and tender colour-tones beyond description. 
We did not speak. Everything had been said. 
But I knew that the wild fresh beauty of the Moor 
was working in him, and uplifting him for this climax 
to his life, as it had always wrought in myself. 

He had never asked where I was taking him. 
And I was glad of that. It showed how entirely 
he trusted me. 

Up and up we climbed, with sheep and ponies 
scattering disgustfully at our coming, and turning 
in safety to watch our going with satisfaction. 


278 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


So, at last, the lonely Warren Inn, then the race 
down Merripit, the whirl through the overarching 
trees of Postbridge, and the long swift run along 
the Princetown Road. 

As we topped the rise at the Warren I had sensed 
his perception of where we were. He did not speak, 
but he sat up and looked alertly about him. His 
eyes rested on Believer, throned superbly in the Moor 
below and robed in richest amethyst, and on the 
buildings of Princetown, coiled like a striped adder 
on the slope of Hessary. 

Believer ! ... As the name welled up into my 
mind at sight of the great triangular hill, there came 
with it, like a flood, the recollection of all it had 
stood for to me — in my depths, in my heights, and 
now in this my final mingled depth and height. 
For if this last time I might ever see it meant an 
end to all the hopes and visions I had centred round 
My Lady, it meant also that to the very fullest of 
my power I was carrying out her Credo of the Love 
that gave and gave, without hope of return, without 
stint in its giving. It meant that the precept and 
practice of her own large heart had come to fullest 
fruition in me, and I knew that that would add 
immeasurably to the joy of her own recovered 
happiness. 

Believer had been the first thing to awaken in 
me the consciousness of the evil state I was in. 
And how I had fought against it ! It had been my 


279 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

first step up out of the hell I had made for myself. 
And now it was to be the highest rung I might ever 
climb towards heaven. Good reason indeed had I 
for giving Believer large place in my estimation. 

Bell-ever ! Bell-ever ! Yes, it still chimed in my 
ears like the sound of a sanctuary bell — and more 
now than ever, though now it rang the knell on the 
happiest days I could ever hope to see. 

Where Cherrybrook wandered lingeringly under 
its bridge I called to the chauffeur to stop, and bade 
him wait. 

‘'We are going to Believer,” I said, and we passed 
through the gate in the piled-granite wall, and 
tramped over the crackling black stalks left by the 
swaling fires, towards the great gray Tor. 

I looked anxiously for sign of My Lady, but could 
see none. If my telegram had by any chance 
missed her my whole plan might miscarry. She 
might be away for the day. She might be ill and 
unable to come. Unhappy possibilities crowded in 
upon me. I absolutely sweated anxieties. 

Then, to my mighty relief, just as we set foot to 
the final rise strewn with the disintegrated fragments 
of the giant stones on top, a white figure came 
through from the other side and stood looking 
questioningly round. She had no doubt come up 
from Believer Bridge on the other side and had only 
that moment arrived. 

My companion had been busy with his going, for 


280 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


the ground was full of pitfalls. I grasped him sud- 
denly by the hand, — for the first and last time. I do 
not know why. Possibly with some wild idea that 
at the very last moment at the sight of her he might 
turn and go. 

He glanced round at me in surprise, then followed 
my look and saw her. He stopped one moment, 
with a deep breath, and stood looking up at her. 
Then he doffed his hat, gave me a final wring of the 
hand and pressed on and up, bareheaded, seeing 
nothing in all the world, I knew, but her. 

And I stood where he had left me and watched 
afar off. 

She was clad all in white. She looked like one of 
her own tall white Madonna lilies with the golden 
crowns that grow by the south porch at Heysham. 

She stood watching, waiting. I saw her hands 
rise in a little gesture of joyful amazement. Then she 
stood with them outstretched in welcome, and he 
went up to grasp them. 

I saw him take them eagerly in his and look up 
into her face. How well I could imagine what her 
face would be like at that supreme moment. There 
would be in it something of the Holy Mother, — 
something of the saintly lover, — something of her 
answered prayers, — and much — very much — of the 
eager maid who has got her heart’s desire. 

I saw him bend and kiss her hands and fall on 
his knees before her with bowed head. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


281 


Then I turned, — with a sob in my heart that was 
partly joy at her joy, partly sorrow for myself, — I 
turned and went down the hill alone. 

And as I went the sob resolved itself ijito the 
pregnant words I had read more than once in My 
Lady^s missal — “ Consummatum est ! — Consum- 
matum est ! — Consummatum est ! ’’ 

Over and over again, as I stumbled mistily along 
over the crackling heather-stalks, I said them to 
myself. They reminded me of that Greater Agony 
which passed without the joy of visible fruition, and 
the soreness of my heart was comforted. 

He upon the Cross had given Himself for a world 
that flouted Him then and paid but little heed to 
Him still. 

My little giving was of very small account, but 
it was all I had to give — and, in my heart, I shall 
ever bear the joy of knowing that it has made for 
My Dear Lady’s happiness. 

I have finished this record of my retrieval from 
the depths by My Dear Lady of the Moor, in the 
little inn at Postbridge where so much of it was 
written. 

As a presentation of Her it is, I know, very in- 
adequate. I have done my best, however, and 
simply set it and her all down as they presented 
themselves to me. 

To-morrow I intend to walk over to Graystone 


282 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


by way of Challacombe Common, to say one last 
prayer for her happiness in her own little white 
chapel which has meant so much to me. 

I shall watch till she and that other have gone 
up to Dream Tor, as I know they will do, and then 
I shall steal into the chapel and there I shall leave 
this manuscript, in the far corner of the externe’s 
seat from which I have so often watched her at her 
prayers. 

I leave it in her hands to do what she will with. 

If she thinks well to give it to the world, I desire 
that it be entitled — “ My Lady of the Moor,” and 
that it be dedicated to — “ Beatrice — My Lady of 
the Moor, who by her noble faith and many prayers 
saved alive the soul of one sinful man, and, if it 
please God, of two.” 


EPILOGUE 


rriHAT, in its essentials, was the story left by 
Noel Daunt — or, to give him the name he 
latterly chose to go by, Ian Carril — in the little white 
House of Prayer on the edge of the Moor at Gray- 
stone, on the very night that happy accident 
introduced me to it and its Guardian Spirit. 

After perusing and considering it she handed it 
to me for further judgment, and finally we decided 
to publish it, subject to the veto of him she called 
‘ Lancelot,’ whom it so intimately concerned. 

Had she found it earlier — but probably it was not 
then there — she could have discussed it with him 
before he left for London. He had been gone only 
a few hours when I met her. 

Before she could consult him about it, however, 
the storm of the war broke over us, and the matter 
had to be left in abeyance, as he was one of the first 
to go to the front, to hold, as I now know, a position 
of very high importance. 

The result to myself of that over-long day on 
Hamildown, and the happy accident of the chapel, 
was the very pleasant acquaintance of ‘ My Lady 
of the Moor ’ in her own gracious person. The 
chance acquaintance ripened into friendship through 
283 


284 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


a fairly regular correspondence, but we did not meet 
again till the spring of 1915. 

Meanwhile, My Lady’s letters kept me informed 
as to the doings of those chiefly concerned. 

She herself was, as always, mightily busy in good 
works — ^literary and otherwise, — the focus of a huge 
correspondence with all sorts and conditions of 
burdened men and women, and, I was sure, a source 
of light and healing to all. 

She was, I could see by her letters, radiantly 
happy, in spite of the fact that ‘ Lancelot ’ was in 
the thick of the fighting and as likely as not to be 
killed any minute in the day. 

“ That is as it may please God,” she wrote, soon 
after he left, “ and I leave him safely in His wise 
and loving hands. I have placed his name behind 
the statue of S. Michael in my little House of Bread, 
and I pray for him continually. He is doing noble 
duty and is happier than he ever has been in his 
life before, — as also am I. He has risen above his 
past, though the remembrance of it weighs him to 
the ground at times. That is the only sad note in 
his treasured letters. To blot out all those bitter 
memories, he says he would willingly sacrifice the 
greater part of what may be left to him. And that 
indeed, may be little, for he may be dead even as 
I write. And if that should come, I shall not dare 
to sorrow over much. Enough for me that our 
hearts and souls have been knit together once more 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


285 


in this life. For fullest fruition we can look safely to 
the future. God is good, and it is a good, glad world. 

‘‘ But I am worried — as much as I permit any 
earthly matters to worry me — about our dear friend 
Ian Carril. I would dearly have liked to see him 
again. I wrote to him very fully, with my heart’s 
thanks for the noble thing he has done for us both. 
How great a thing none but ourselves can fully 
know. And I have had no answer, — which is very 
unlike him. I wonder, dear friend, if you could 
learn anything about him for me and ease my heart 
concerning him.” 

She gave me the address of the hotel in Russell 
Street where Carril usually put up and I went along 
to enquire. 

He had been there for one day after coming up 
from Dartmoor, but had left the following day. 
Yes, there were letters waiting for him. And among 
them I recognised My Lady’s handwriting. There 
was a rumour among the staff that Mr. Carril had 
gone to the front — as a war correspondent it was 
believed. And that was all I could learn. 

It struck me that Johnstone — whom I knew — 
might be able to tell me something of him. So I 
went down to Fleet Street to dig him up. 

I found him at last and we adjourned to his special 
haunt for coffee and smokes. 

‘‘ Carril ? — Do you know Carril ? ” he said, when 
I broached the subject. 


286 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“ I don’t know him personally, but I know all 
about him.” 

“ Oh — you do, do you ? ” and he regarded me 
inquisitively. 

“Well, more than most folks, anyway. And I should 
say he’s a much finer fellow than most folks think.” 

“He is that. Well, what do you want to know 
about him, — and why ? ” 

“ He did a very great service to a friend of mine 
— at grievous cost to himself, and now he seems to 
have disappeared. We want to know where he’s 
got to.” 

“ I got him the offer of special to the ‘ Daily 
Telephone,’ and he left in a hurry. He’s somewhere 
at the front, but I can’t tell you where. But he’s 
pretty sure to be back soon. They’re shutting down 
on war correspondents, and quite right too, from 
their point of view. They tell too much sometimes. 
But, hang it all ! — we’ve got to live, even in war 
time. I’m going Red Cross. Off in a week or two. 
I shall see something anyway, and it’ll all come in 
useful some time.” 

And that, for the time being, was all the news I 
could get for My Lady. 

It was about a month later that I met Johnstone 
again, clad in khaki, with the Red Cross on his arm, 
striding along the Embankment in a purposeful 
way, and greeted him : 

“ Hello, Warrior ? ” 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


287 


“ Picker-iip, — at your service ! By the way, I 
met your man yesterday, — Carril.” 

‘‘ Oh, he’s back then, as you foretold.” 

“ Yes, — no opening for war correspondents. He’s 
joined the London Scottish ” 

“ Good ! My boy’s in it too.” 

“ He’ll probably know Carril then, or can get 
track of him for you. He’s keen to get out and tear 
Prussians to rags. Says they’re possessed of the 
devil and ought to be destroyed. Heard some hor- 
rible things out there, and says he has every reason 
to believe they’re true. No, he didn’t see much 
himself. They wouldn’t let him. But he saw quite 
enough to make him believe what he heard. If you 
still want him send him a line to Head-quarters at 
Buckingham Gate — or run along and catch your 
boy and make him find him for you. They’re 
generally all on deck between five and six.” 

I went along that same evening, and by dint of 
much enquiry at last found my own boy — to his 
very great astonishment — and presently, through 
him, my man. I recognised him at once as the lean- 
faced, sombre man I had briefiy seen at Post bridge. 

“ You don’t know me, Mr. Carril,” I said, “ ex- 
cept perhaps by name. But I’ve looked you up on 
behalf of your friend, the Lady of the little White 
Chapel at Gray stone.” 

“ Ah — you know My Lady ? ” he asked quickly, 
with a searching look at me. 


288 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“ I have that privilege. But only of late, — after 
you left Graystone.’’ 

‘‘ Suppose we go upstairs,” he suggested. “ It 
will be quieter there,” and we climbed the much- 
trodden stone staircase inside the wall, and came 
out on to a gallery which we had almost to ourselves. 

“ The Lady of the Chapel begged me to find out 
what had become of you. She wrote to you, but 
received no answer.” 

‘‘ I was out of England. I have had her letter 
since I returned and have replied to it.” 

“ Oh— I did not know.” 

It was only yesterday that it struck me there 
might be something for me in Russell Street, and I 
went along to enquire.” 

“You are not living there now, then ? ” 

“ No, I’ve taken a room closer at hand. You see, 
I’m here all day.” 

“ And you’re hoping to get out ? ” 

“ At the first possible moment. It’s going to be 
a red-hot business and every man will be wanted. 
They’re terribly ready. We’re not. . . . She is 
well ? — The Lady of the Chapel ? — and . . . 
happy ? ” 

“ Quite well, and happier than ever in her life 
before — thanks to you ! ” 

“ Ah ! ” — he looked quickly and keenly at me 
and then down again into the maelstrom of kilted 
figures down below. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


289 


I judged it well to tell him just how much I knew, 
and exactly how I happened to come into the matter. 

He listened quietly but intently, with just a quiet 
nod now and again. 

“ If you won’t deem me impertinent, may I say 
that I think you acted very ” 

But he raised a peremptory hand and stopped me. 

“You know My Lady,” he said quietty. “Well 
then — ^you understand. . . . Her happiness is the 
only possible thing. ... I hope to God it will make 
for it ! ” 

“ So far I can assure you it has done. I believe 
her to be completely and absolutely happy — except 
on your account.” 

“ I have written to her,” he said briefly. 

“ A common friendship with the Lady of the 
Chapel should be a bond between us. Can we not 
see something of one another, until the time comes 
for you to go ? ” 

“ Thank you ! We’ll see. We’re working very 
hard here, you know. — Trying to do in six months 
what usually takes two or three years. Twenty-mile 
route marches are the order of the day at 
present ” 

“ Sundays ? ” 

“ We’re some of us on duty all the time.” 

So I left my card with him and a cordial invitation 
to come out whenever he felt inclined and had the 
time. 

u 


290 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


I had a letter from My Lady at Graystone next 
morning, telling me about him, and begging me to 
look him up and do anything in the way of friendship 
that was possible. 

“ I have placed his name and your boy’s with 
Lancelot’s behind the statue of S. Michael,” — she 
wrote — “ and they are ever in my prayers. If it 
please God, they will all come through unscathed. 
If He sees otherwise, be sure, my friend, that it is 
for the best. I have implicit confidence in His Love 
and Wisdom, and my heart is perfectly at rest 
concerning them.” 

Carril came out to see us several times during the 
autumn and winter, and I was glad to get somewhat 
more into his acquaintance. 

He was at all times silent and reserved, but I, 
knowing so much of what he had gone through, 
quite understood ; and in his quiet way I think he 
enjoyed his taste of our simple home-life. 

Only when he was alone with me, and our talk 
came round to the Lady of the little White Chapel, 
did he kindle at all. But it did not take half an eye 
to see what extraordinary depth of feeling for her 
dwelt beneath that quiet exterior of his. 

‘‘ She stands next to God with me and very little 
below Him,” he said tersely one night. “ It is 
through her I have learned all I know of Him and 
His ways.” 


21 . 


rjlHAT grim Autumn and Winter passed — for 
some of us like a dreadful nightmare, and we 
mentally pinched ourselves at times to make sure 
it was all real, — that in this twentieth century such 
things could really be, — that the so-called Christian 
nations were tearing at one another’s throats, — and 
that one of them seemed to have deliberately sold 
itself to the devil. 

On October 31st — the night of Hallowe’en — the 
First Battalion of the London Scottish suffered their 
ghastly baptism of fire and death at Messines, and 
bore themselves gallantly. They suffered dread- 
fully, however, and supplementary drafts were the 
order of the day to bring them up to strength again. 

Carril and my own boy went out with the draft 
on Sunday, March 7th ; and then — as to so many 
more — the grim reality of war came very close home 
to us. 

“ Have no fears for them ! ” — wrote My Lady, 
from Gray stone. “ All is well with them whatever 
happens, but I have a strong faith that they will 
all be given back to us safe and well. God and 
S. Michael will see to them.” 

Surely no loftier or more hopeful spirit ever dwelt 
in woman. 


291 


292 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


The anxious months dragged on. We had reports 
of close shaves and narrow escapes from all of them , 
but in war a miss is as good as a mile, and so far 
they were untouched. 

“ As I told you ! ” — wrote My Lady. “ God and 
S. Michael are looking after them for us. Don’t 
worry ! ” 

Then on May 9th came the hot work at Riche- 
bourg. The London Scottish, we knew, were 
somewhere in that neighbourhood. They were 
brigaded with the 1st Scots Guards, 1st Coldstreams, 
1st Black Watch, and 1st Camerons, and so formed 
the 1st Guards Brigade of the 1st Division of the 
1st Army Corps of the 1st Army, and were mightily 
uplifted at the high honour done them, — and our 
fears for them were proportionately increased. 

Richebourg was costly work. Details came in 
slowly. Our anxieties were great. 

It was a week later that I got a telegram from 
My Lady at Graystone ; — ‘‘ Meet me at Paddington 
3.30. My two are wounded. Can you see me across 
to Boulogne ? ” 

He would be a strangely made man who could 
refuse such a request. I made all my preparations, 
and was waiting on Paddington platform when the 
train ran in, and the guard, who seemed to have 
taken My Lady under his special protection, handed 
her out with an air. 

She was wearing the golden-brown costume 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


293 


trimmed with what looked like peacocks’ feathers, 
which I remembered Carril mentioning in his MS., 
and it became her wonderfully well. I was not 
surprised at the guard’s gusto in his guardianship. 
That, and her distinguished carriage, caused many 
to turn and stare after her as we went down the 
platform. 

Her face was perfectly calm ; her manner, as 
usual, unruffled and dignified. She always, some- 
how, suggested life on a loftier plane than those 
about her. Perhaps it was the outward and visible 
sign of the inward grace of her little white chapel 
on the Moor. 

Both rather serious, I fear,” she said quietly, 
in answer to my anxious questions. “ But it will 
be all right. How soon can we get across ? Yes, 
I have a passport. He insisted on getting it for me 
months ago. And you ? ” 

‘‘ I got one months ago also, as soon as my boy 
went out. We can catch to-night’s boat, and, as 
times of sailing are indefinite, it might be as well 
to get on at once to Folkestone. Have you lunched? ” 
“ Thank you, yes. Let us go on at once.” 

We had no difflculties either at Charing Cross or 
Folkestone. Our slender baggage was passed in a 
moment. It seemed as though the officials under- 
stood that we were hastening to a possible death-bed. 

“ When did you get word ? ” I asked, as we sped 
among the roofs and chimney-pots of South London. 


294 MY^ LADY OF THE MOOR 

“ At eight o’clock this morning. The telegram 
had been delayed somewhere.” 

“ You made quick work.” 

“ Such a matter admits of no delay. I arranged 
things at home, wired Wright to come for me 
in his car, and caught the 10.30 at Bovey quite 
easUy.” 

“ Any details given in the telegram ? ” 

“ No. It simply says, ‘ Both wounded. Can you 
come ? ’ ” 

“ And who sent it ? ” 

“ . . . Lancelot.” 

‘‘ You bear it bravely.” 

“ Why not ? Whatever it is I know it is for the 
best. Now that my heart is at ease concerning him 
I can bear anything . . . everything. ... It was 
only when his future life was in peril that my heart 
was on the rocks. After all, this life is a very little 
thing. It’s only the next that matters.” 

“ This world would be a mighty different place 
to live in if there were more lilie you in it,” I could 
not forbear saying ; for her lofty philosophical 
spirit, born, I doubted not, of her close intimacies 
with the Powers with whom she was in such con- 
stant and familiar communion, impressed me 
greatly. 

“ There are more in it than you suppose. I am 
nothing uncommon.” 

“ It may be so, but it has not been my good 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


295 


fortune to come across many who look upon life 
as you do.” 

That is your misfortune,” she smiled. “ I hope 
you did not think it very outrageous, — my asking 
you to escort me across.” 

On the contrary ” 

“ You see I am singularly — sadly — short of male 
relatives. I have not one I could ask. I knew I 
could trust you, and I hoped you would not mind.” 

“ I mind very much, and I am honoured by your 
confidence. I can quite understand Carril’s readi- 
ness to serve you to the utmost of his power with 
no hope of return.” 

‘‘ Poor Ian Carril ! ” she murmured. “ From the 
ordinary point of view what an unsatisfying life he 
has had ! But, to me, he stands high — among the 
very first indeed.” 

I can understand that.” 

‘‘ How did you like him ? ” 

Very much. But of course we saw very little 
of him — and then only the outer man. He was 
always very reserved.” 

‘‘No wonder, — after all he had gone through. 
He is a good man. He will have his reward.” 

At Folkestone we were fortunate and had little 
delay. The sea too was smooth and we made quick 
passage — escorted part of the way by British de- 
stroyers, and presently handed over by them to 
French, who saw us safely into Boulogne Harbour. 


296 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


I took My Lady straight to the Hotel Meurice in 
the rue Victor Hugo, a house I had known for many 
years, and found we had fallen well. For there were 
living there a number of the British Medical Staff 
and theff interest in My Lady was instantaneous. 

For the first time I then heard the actual name 
of him she called Lancelot, and the way was open 
to her the moment she mentioned it. 

She learned that he was in the hospital temporarily 
established in the Hotel Princesse in the rue Ste. 
Beuve. 

His condition ? Serious, but by no means hope- 
less ; in fact, the latest report gave good grounds 
for prospect of recovery, though it might be a long 
business. 

And Ian Carril ? Ah — that was the private in 
the London Scottish, whom ' Lancelot ’ — I am 
pledged to stick to that name — had insisted, when 
insistence was almost beyond him and a risky 
indulgence, on receiving absolutely equal treatment 
with himself. They understood there was some 
very special reason for that, — that the London Scot 
man had in fact risked and indeed, it would probably 
turn out — given his life for the other. 

At which My Lady’s usually calm face was a fine 
study in emotions. 

They were in adjoining private rooms at the hotel. 
It was too late to see them that night. To-morrow 
it should be arranged at the earliest possible moment. 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


297 


And My Lady thanked them in a way that made 
every man of them eager to win more of the same. 
Then she ordered some supper to be sent to her 
room, and bade us good night. 

As early as all the circumstances permitted we 
went along next morning to the Hotel Princesse, 
well escorted by medicals, and were taken at once 
to the rooms where the wounded men lay. 

My Lady went of course straight to Lancelot. 
I judged it seemly not to intrude, and so asked to 
be taken to Carril. 

He was obviously in sore straits, — a mass of 
bandages with lean bloodless flesh just visible in 
between. He was also obviously in great pain and 
fully conscious, though it was only late the previous 
night that he had come to himself. 

“ And better perhaps for him if he hadn’t,” one 
of the medicos said to me afterwards. “ He must 
be suffering tortures. His back is like a cullender — 
all holes — and all bullet -holes. I’ve not heard 
particulars yet, but there’s something unusual about 
it all. Some of the bullets have gone right through 
him. Some are still in him. We got out all we could 
while he was unconscious. Really, you know, he 
has no right to be alive. I don’t know what his 
walk in life has been, but he’s in marvellous condi- 
tion — not a superfluous ounce on him and all the 
rest steel- wire.” 


“ Will he pull through ? ” 


298 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


Absolutely impossible, according to all known 
theories. But one never knows. In war-time men 
recover from wounds that would be fatal in peace. 
He may linger on — in very great pain which will 
wear him out in time. He might collapse at any 
moment.” 

He gave me some account of the worst injuries, 
which made me glad I had had a good breakfast 
before coming. To attempt to describe them — which 
in any case I could not do — would simply be like 
pages out of a treatise on gunshot wounds. So there 
I leave it. 

He knew me as I came to the bedside and smiled 
faintly. 

“ Dear fellow ! I’ve brought you something that 
will gladden your heart. My Lady is here and will 
be in in a minute or two.” 

And the look of ineffable joy on the lean dark face 
made my eyes misty for a moment. 

It was, I knew, the one thing on earth he would 
have desired. 

He smiled faintly again, a pitiful smile forced by 
sheer strength of will through his rending agonies. 
So — when their hearts were strong and their faith 
and hope securely anchored up above — smiled the 
victims of the rack while one by one their sinews 
snapped under the strain. 

A tiny spark gleamed in both his sombre eyes. 
He made no attempt to speak. With bullets 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


299 


through and through his lungs the marvel was that 
he could still breathe, even as gently and slowly as 
he was doing. 

Then the door opened quietly and the Ward 
Sister ushered in My Lady. Carril’s eyes fixed on 
her and never for a second left her all the time she 
was there, — such a hungry, happy, satisfied look 
as I never saw in human eyes before. I have seen 
something akin to it in my dog’s when I have been 
away from home for a time and receive at last his 
joyous welcome back. 

She fell on her knees by the bed, and laid one soft 
hand on one of his bandaged ones, and the other 
very gently on his bandaged head. And her face ! 
— it was lit with holy fires. I saw the reflection of 
them in the dim mirrors of Carril’s eyes. 

‘‘ Oh, my dear ! ” she said softly. You over- 
whelm us. You have climbed to the highest indeed. 
God be thanked for you and for this greatest doing 
of all ! Oh, Ian, live if you can, that we may thank 
you all our lives ! ” 

‘‘ All’s well ! ” he murmured faintly, with that 
brief smile strained out of his agonies. 

“ All is well, dear friend, — brother ! God is very 
good to us all. He has permitted you this greatest 
crowning deed. It brings you very near to Him. 
Oh, I thank God for you ! How He is rejoicing in 
you ! It’s a good glad world where such things are 
possible. I will come to you every day — as often 


300 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


as they will let me. And he sends you again his 
heartfelt gratitude. Promise me you will do your 
best to get better.” 

He smiled at her again, and then murmured, 
“ I promise.” 

She told me all that had happened, as we walked 
under the arching trees and battlements of the 
Haute Ville towards the Cathedral, where she 
was hastening to return thanks for these great 
mercies. 

“ It was at Richebourg St. Vaast. They had most 
dreadful times there and were very hard pressed. 
They could not get through and had to retire. 
Lancelot’s brigade suffered terribly. It was falling 
back under pressure of overwhelming odds and he 
was doing his utmost to stem the back-flow when he 
got hit — in the head and in the leg, and fell. The 
London Scottish were just alongside, and Ian Carril 
saw him fall and ran out to help him. He tried to 
lift him, and Lancelot begged him to leave him. 
The Germans were making a target of them and 
it was no use them both being killed. And then Ian 
did his wonderful thing. He laid Lancelot down and 
interposed his own body between him and the 
snipers who were determined to get them both. 
That is why his back is riddled with bullets. Oh, 
it is terrible, they say. And he lay there sheltering 
him until Lancelot’s men made another rush and 
recovered them both. Can you imagine anything 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


301 


more magnificent ? — Knowing, as we do, all there 
was between those two ! — Oh, it passes words ! It 
was Christ-like. That is the only word for it. And 
they say he cannot possibly live. Think of it ! — 
All those black years, before and after his prison 
time, he lived only in the hope of killing Lancelot. 
Then, by God’s grace and for love of me, he brought 
him back to me and saved his soul alive. And now 
— now he has given his actual life for him — and for 
me. Oh, it is sublime ! I am going to thank God 
and Our Lady for their great goodness to him and 
to us.” 

And I sat in a back seat in the great church 
dedicated to Our Lady, and watched her as I had 
done in her little House of Prayer on the Moor. And 
as I watched I mused upliftingly on the very strange 
circumstances that had brought these lives together, 
— such divers lives, such extraordinary links of Fate 
between them — of Providence rather, for it was no 
blind chance that had ordered things so. 

My Lady — a saint. Lancelot — a sinner above 
most. Carril — driven to the ultimate crime by 
Lancelot’s sin. Carril, anti-Papist by birth and 
training, redeemed by My Lady, most fervent of 
Papists. Lancelot, the sinner, brought back to 
grace and My Lady by Carril, whose sole aim in life 
had been his destruction, whose only brief gleam 
of hope in life had been the winning of My Lady. 
And now this crowning act of Carril’s in the giving 


302 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

of his own life for the life of the man he had sworn 
to kill. 

Was there ever a more tangled skein ? But as 
I mused there came back to me the words of Preacher 
John in one of My Lady’s books, — “ Love on ! 
Love on ! Love on ! ” — and I saw that the power 
which had at last straightened out that tangled 
skein — which had, without our understanding it, 
been working out the end from the beginning, was 
the Power that rules the world in spite of us — the 
Power of Love. The Love of woman for man, and 
man for woman, and, over all, the Love of God for 
both and all. 


22 . 


nr HAD done all I could, and my home duties 
would not permit me to stay on indefinitely 
in Boulogne. 

So, committing My Lady to the care of the Medical 
Staff in general and the Ward Sisters and the hostess 
of the Meurice in particular, I returned to London, 
quite satisfied in my mind that she would be excel- 
lently well looked after. 

I looked each day to receive news of Carril’s 
death. But the days passed and still in some mar- 
vellous fashion he lived. 

My Lady wrote a line every second day or so, and 
each letter I opened I expected to receive the final 
word of him. 

But that word did not come. Any actual recovery 
was of course out of the question, and they all knew 
it, and he knew it himself. He suffered agonies, and 
yet he did not die. 

“ And truly, for his dear sake, I am sorry that it 
is not ended,” wrote My Lady. “ And he would be 
glad too. But we can only wait God’s good time, 
and wonder.” 

Lancelot meanwhile was making good progress, 
and in one of her letters she hinted at a strange and 
wonderful development in him which brought joy 
to her heart. 


303 


304 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


“ He is happier,” she said, than ever I have 
known him. He is like one whose burden has been 
loosed from him and his soul set free. I have not, 
of course, been able to discuss the matter with the 
M.O. as I can with you, who know all, and what the 
burden was that weighed so upon him. Dear friend, 
I do believe my prayers have been answered, and 
Christ’s own promise, made to me in my little chapel 
that night when I was so near to death, has been 
fulfilled. And fulfilled in this life, which is even 
better and more than He promised, — and just like 
Him ! He promised me that in heaven the memory 
of his sin should be wiped out, but that the sense of 
forgiveness should remain. And it seems to me that 
that is just what has happened, only that it has 
come now, for my great happiness, instead of later. 
No one else could notice or understand it, but I 
know him so well. All the sorrow and regret he 
had come to feel for that black hidden life of his 
could never wipe out the bitter memory of it. He 
knew it, and I knew it, for we spoke of it together. 
And oh, how I have prayed for him ! It was good 
for him to suffer and it was right. But I prayed that 
in time the bitterness of his suffering might end, 
and that he might feel only the forgiveness, and so 
find peace of mind and heart again. And un- 
doubtedly it is so. His very face is changed, and 
oh, so much for the better. All the bitterness and 
sadness, which remained even after he came back 
to me, are gone completely. He is a new man. Only 


305 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

the good is left in him. I believe that one of the 
bullets in his head has destroyed just that little 
bit of brain that housed those unhappy memories. 
Such things do happen. That much I have learned 
from the M.O.’s and nurses. It is either that, or 
in some way a knowledge of God’s full forgiveness 
has come to him and effected practically the same 
thing. 

“ God is good, and it is a good, glad world ! — even 
though our dear Ian Carril cannot long remain in 
it with us. But he will be glad to go. He is happy 
in our happiness and at all the large hand he has 
had in it. I sit with him by the hour. He suffers 
terribly and my hand soothes his pain when nothing 
else will. He has only one great desire left, and 
that I fear is impracticable. It is that he should 
be allowed to die on Dartmoor ! Isn’t that like 
him ? — and yet it is natural, for Dartmoor has been 
all in all to him. I wish it could be managed, but 
I don’t see how. He has given us everything — even 
to his life. Oh, if we could do for him this one thing 
that he craves. If he is still with us when Lancelot 
can be moved he says it shall be done. The cost and 
trouble would not count and his influence would.” 

And fourteen days later she wrote joyfully that 
it was to be done, — tried at all events. Lancelot 
had made arrangements for a special invalid carriage 
from Folkestone to Charing Cross, for an ambulance 
across to Paddington and for another invalid 
carriage to Bovey. Thence they would travel by 


306 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

another ambulance, sent down on purpose, to 
Hey sham. 

“ Money, you see, is fortunately nothing to him. 
His only wish is to carry out, if it can be done, this 
last wish of our poor Ian Carril’s heart. Ian is quite 
aware that he may die on the journey. He says it 
is worth trying for. . . . Will you, dear friend, meet 
us at Charing Cross and give me what help you can ? ” 

I did, and saw them off at Paddington. But my 
help was not needed, for the whole royal family 
could not have met with more whole-hearted 
attention from everyone concerned than did My 
Lady and her wounded ones. 

I was very much struck with the appearance of 
Lancelot. I had never known him, but he seemed to 
me a very noble-looking man ; and it was difficult 
to associate the man I saw with the man I knew 
only from Carril’s story and My Lady’s confirmation 
of it. 

Carril himself was terribly worn and very weak, 
and obviously in great pain. At the same time he 
was as full of eagerness to see the end of this great 
adventure as so broken a man could be. 

“ Worth it all,” he whispered, when I endeavoured 
to express my feeling for him in his suffering. “ To 
die on Dartmoor ! That is all. ... I do not care 
how soon ... if only there. . . . They are very 
happy,” he said, looking at My Lady and Lancelot. 
‘‘ Her happiness is everything. . . . Thank God, 
she is happy ! ” 


23 . 


ALL is well ! ” — wrote My Lady, two days later. 

“ All is well ! God is good, and it’s a good, 
glad world ! . . . Our dear Ian Carril died last night 
in the sunset, just as he had wished and where he 
wished. Nothing could have been more beautiful. 
It was heavenly sweet. The journey had tried him 
terribly and he knew he was going. As the very last 
thing of all, he begged to be carried a little way up 
the Moor in front of the house, so that his eyes might 
rest at the last upon the things he loved best. 

So four of the neighbours, — dear men of Devon, 
who had known him and liked him, — carried him 
out, on the stretcher on which he had travelled 
from Boulogne, to a clear spot among the heather 
and bracken from which he could see the sun sinking 
behind Hamildown. 

He was going quickly. I knelt by his side, and 
he whispered, “ Believer.” 

And when I told them what he wanted, those 
dear men carried him on, past the stream and the 
bog, right up to Dream Tor. 

And there they laid him down and stood afar off, 
leaving us together. 


307 


308 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


I knelt again and held his poor wasted hand in 
mine, and we sat and waited for Brother Death to 
come and take him to his rest and his reward. 

He was perfectly happy. I never saw a happier 
face, though he must have suffered horribly from 
the jolting, careful as the men had been. 

And the sunset ! Never have I seen such heavenly 
glory. It might have been sent specially for him. 
The west was full of clouds, but the radiance of 
heaven itself seemed to stream through them, and 
round them, and all about them, — amber and 
crimson and great shafts of mellow gold, and, away 
behind them, infinite wide free space of rarest 
tender blue-green ether. Oh, it was wonderful — 
heavenly ! 

He lay looking at it, his face all lighted up 
by it. 

Then his eyes travelled slowly along the shadowy 
slopes of Hamildown till they came to Believer, 
which had meant so much in his life. And Believer 
was noble, — ^like a great uncut amethyst flushed 
with gold. Princetown was shadowed by the slope 
of Hessary. I was glad we could not see it, though 
I do not think he would have minded. He had risen 
above it. 

“ Believer ! ” he whispered, and the tears ran 
down my face at thought of all that Believer had 
been to him and to me, — new life to us both, — and 
of all the still more it will be to me henceforth till 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


309 


I die too. How I would love to die just as our dear 
Ian Carril died ! 

His face was full of light — ^from the inside and the 
outside — that glorious golden light of the setting 
suns — his own and God’s. 

The hand I held in mine quickened suddenly for 
a moment. It clung to mine. His lips moved again 
and I bent close to him. He looked up into my eyes, 
and said with his very last breath, “ My — Dear — 
Lady !...!... thank . . . God ” — then, as I 
kissed him for the first and last time, the life went 
out of his hand, but the glory of the sunset was stiU 
in his eyes. 

Dear, dear Ian Carril ! He died thinking of me — 
as he had lived. I sat for a few minutes still, in the 
Presence. I could not turn at once to life again. 
And as I sat looking out over the Moor and all that 
he had loved so much, I was suddenly as conscious 
that he was still close to me as ever I was when he 
was alive, — conscious too that it was the new Ian, 
the risen, full of new strength and beauty. And I 
felt, not like one bereft, but as one endowed suddenly 
with unexpected treasure. If he had actually spoken 
to me I should not have been in the least surprised. 
In time he will. Of that I am certain. And always 
now I shall have the comforting sense of his actual 
nearer nearness. He will hover about me. He will 
help me. He will do all that he would have loved 
to do for me, as he never could have done here. 


310 MY LADY OF THE MOOR 

Oh, I am rich in him and all his undying love for 
me. 

And as I sat and looked on the Moor, it gave me 
once again its great message which I have striven 
to make known to men. I saw that out of all evil. 
Love rises triumphant at last. I saw that while 
the Moor stands, clothed in her regal purple, as 
long as the Dart flows from her mighty bosom, so 
will Love stand, royal, invincible ; so will Love 
flow unfailing throughout all ages, subduing all 
things to himself before the end. For Love is God, 
and God is Love. 

He is lying now before the altar and the Christ 
in my little white House of Prayer — with flowers 
and lights about him, and the ruby lamp that he 
loved above him, and I have said many prayers for 
his soul’s sweet repose. 

He is the flrst who has ever lain there. But when 
my time comes, and Dear Brother Death enters 
without knocking, I too hope to lie where he lies 
now. And I pray that my going may be as sweet 
and as happy as his.” 

So died Noel Daunt, better known as Ian Carril, 
— would-be murderer, convict, truest of true lovers, 
and very gallant Christian gentleman. 

Lancelot made a good recovery, and My Lady’s 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 311 

letters confirmed her idea that one of the bullet 
wounds in the head had without a doubt wiped out 
from his memory all but the vaguest shadow of 
recollection of the burden of shame he had carried 
for so many years. 

It naturally seemed to me that it would be unwise, 
in the circumstances, even to submit to him the story 
of Ian Carril, and still more so to publish it. Though, 
as, by the grace of God and My Lady, it had all 
worked out, I could not but be sorry that the world 
should be deprived of so strange and uplifting a 
record of the saving of two souls by the simple power 
of love, — the love of one noble woman leading 
them both to the highest love of all. 

I suggested this view of the matter to My Lady, 
and for a time heard no more of it. 

Then she wrote me, — “ He has left to-day for 
the front. I thought long over all you said, and took 
it to chapel with me, and prayed much for guidance. 
And in the end I decided to show it to him and do 
as he might wish. 

He read it very carefully, — spent days on it — 
and then he said, — “ It is too fine a thing to keep 
to ourselves. It cannot have been sent to us only 
for our own use. ... As to myself . . . (he passed 
his hand over his brow as though striving to recall 
that mercifully blotted-out past) . . . Thank God, 
it has all passed from me ! . . . And next to Him, 
I thank you, my dearest one, and Ian Carril.’’ 


312 


MY LADY OF THE MOOR 


I am glad he has decided so, for it is Ian’s monu- 
ment and never was more fitting memorial or better 
deserved. 

So now you can go ahead with an easy mind. 

God is good, and it’s a good, glad world ! ” 


THE END 


PRINTBD IN GREAT BRITAIN 
BY WM. BRBNDON AND SON, LTD. 
PLYMOUTH 










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